Abstract
Tracks induced by swift heavy ions are analyzed in insulating crystals. An empirical R e (T m) function is obtained (T m—melting temperature; R e —track radius); other material parameters are missing from it. It is derived from the analysis of the R e (T m) function that a universal Gaussian temperature distribution T max is formed at the moment when the melt diameter is maximal. The variance of T max is identical for all track forming insulators at any ion energy. The peak temperature of the radial distribution is T p=⟨ s e ⟩/3α k, where ⟨ s e ⟩ is the electronic stopping power per atom, k is the Boltzmann constant and α=α L and α=α H are constants for irradiations with low (E < 2.2 MeV/nucleon) and high (E > 8 MeV/nucleon) velocity ions, respectively. The most important feature of the distribution T max is that it does not contain material parameters of the individual solids.
Acknowledgements
This work was completed with the support of the National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA, Hungary) under contract no T046990.