Observation of dynamic thermal processes induced by α-particle impact on sapphire

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Abstract
An aluminum thin‐film superconducting microstrip was used to measure, in real time, the local temperature perturbation caused by single 6–8‐MeV α particles striking a sapphire substrate at about 2 °K. The microstrip monitored temperature changes from a few m °K to a few hundred m °K with a spatial resolution of ∼5 μ and a time resolution of ∼3 nsec. Results indicate that the initial energy transfer in the substrate lattice is via a thermal shock wave propagating outward from the point of α impact with a velocity of 3×103 m/sec to a distance of 20–40 μ followed by a diffusionlike cooling process which appears to be of a highly nonequilibrium nature.

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