An algorithm for determining etch sequences for CR-39

CR-39 is a plastic commonly used to detect charged particles in inertial confinement fusion or high energy density physics experiments. Charged particles leave trails of molecular damage in the plastic, which are then chemically etched to form visible microscopic tracks that can be counted. The sequence and duration of the chemical etches must be carefully chosen to recover high quality data. In this paper, we present a new algorithm that was developed to automatically determine reasonable CR-39 etching sequences for proton radiography experiments at the Omega Laser Facility. This model incorporates information on the experimental setup and measurements of the proton source spectrum and fluence to prescribe a reasonable etching schedule for each individual piece of CR-39.