Relation between the basic phenomena and the observed damage

From the atomic data tables to the observations of a latent track in a solid, many different processes take place. The first one concerns the development of the electronic cascade around the ion path. The resulting energy distribution around the ion path should be considered as an input for the models which describes the relaxation of the matter under this dense electronic excitation. In this paper, we show that the mean values such as the linear energy transfer or the radial distribution of the dose are not sufficient to explain all the experimental results on the latent tracks. To go further one has to take into account the microscopic description of the density of events and above all one should not forget the specific structural or chemical responses of target.