The degradation of DGEBA/DICY under 100 keV proton irradiation

The degradation process of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA)/ dicyandimide (DICY) solidified system under 100 keV proton irradiation was investigated. It was found that the proton irradiation results in mass loss, which the maximum is approximately 15.5 mu g/cm(2), and change in surface morphology of DGEBA/DICY. The analyses of FT-IR and XPS showed that, the proton irradiation induces the debonding of the weak groups such as -CH(3), C-O, leading to formation of stable carbon-rich structure by recombination of the occurred free radicals, and chemical reaction between the free radicals with participation of proton. The degradation of DGEBA/DICY exhibits exponential variation with the proton fluence, which the degradation rate is high at the initial stage of irradiation, and becomes slow trending to constant after the proton fluence reaches 6 x 10(15)/cm(2). (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.