Segmentation of nearly isotropic overlapped tracks in photomicrographs using successive erosions as watershed markers.

Introduction: Procedures for measuring and counting tracks are time-consuming and involve practical problems. The precision of automatic counting methods is not satisfactory yet; the major challenges are distinguishing tracks and material defects, identifying small tracks and defects of similar size, and detecting overlapping tracks.

Materials And Methods: Here, we address the overlapping tracks issue using the algorithm Watershed Using Successive Erosions as Markers (WUSEM), which combines the watershed transform, morphological erosions and labeling to separate regions in photomicrographs.

Micro-Raman spectroscopic characterization of a CR-39 detector.

Characterization by micro-Raman spectroscopy of polymeric materials used as nuclear track detectors reveals physico-chemical and morphological information on the material's molecular structure. In this work, the nuclear track detector poly(allyl diglycol carbonate), or Columbia Resin 39 (CR-39), was characterized according to the fluence of alpha particles produced by a (226)Ra source and chemical etching time. Therefore, damage of the CR-39 chemical structure due to the alpha-particle interaction with the detector was analyzed at the molecular level.

Effects of etching on zircon grains and its implications for the fission track method.

Studies of zircon grains using optical microscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) have been carried out to characterize the surface of natural zircon as a function of etching time. According to the surface characteristics observed using an optical microscope after etching, the zircon grains were classified as: (i) homogeneous; (ii) anomalous, and (iii) hybrid. Micro-Raman results showed that, as etching time increases, the crystal lattice is slightly altered for homogeneous grains, it is completely damaged for anomalous grains, and it is altered in some areas for hybrid grains.