The development of super fine-grained nuclear emulsion

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel PVA-Gelatin Mixing Method (PGMM) for producing super fine-grained nuclear emulsions with crystal sizes of 20-50 nm, enhancing detection of submicron ionizing particles for dark matter research.

Contribution

The paper presents a new production technique, PGMM, that allows precise control of crystal size in nuclear emulsions, improving their suitability for detecting extremely short particle tracks.

Findings

Emulsions with 20-50 nm crystal sizes were successfully produced.

The new emulsions detect extremely short ionizing particle tracks.

The composition and spatial resolution of the emulsions were characterized.

Abstract

A nuclear emulsion with micronized crystals is required for the tracking detection of submicron ionizing particles, which are a target of dark matter detection and other methods. We found that a new production method, named as the PVA-Gelatin Mixing Method (PGMM), could effectively control crystal size from 20 nm to 50 nm. We named two types of an emulsion produced with the new method NIT and UNIT. The composition and spatial resolution of them were measured, and the results indicated that these emulsions detect extremely short tracks.