Dosimetric characteristics of LiF:Mg,Cu,Si thermoluminescent (TL) material developed at KAERI have been investigated and compared with those of commercially available LiF:Mg,Cu,P (GR-200A). LiF:Mg,Cu,Si thermoluminescence dosimeter (TLD) can be heated up to 573K without any loss of TL sensitivity or any change in the glow curve structure. High-temperature glow peak in LiF:Mg,Cu,Si is significantly lower than that in GR-200A, consequently the residual signal is only 0.025%, which is about 35 times less than that of GR-200A. The TL sensitivity of the LiF:Mg,Cu,Si TLD is about 55 and 1.1 times higher than those of the LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) and GR-200A, respectively.

Calibration neutron fields have been developed at KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) to study the responses of commonly used neutron survey meters in the presence of fast neutrons of energy around 10 MeV. The neutron fields were produced by using neutrons from the (241)Am-Be sources held in a graphite pile and a DT neutron generator. The spectral details and the ambient dose equivalent rates of the calibration fields were established, and the responses of six neutron survey meters were evaluated. Four single-moderator-based survey meters exhibited an under-responses ranging from ∼9 to 55 %. DINEUTRUN, commonly used in fields around nuclear reactors, exhibited an over-response by a factor of three in the thermal neutron field and an under-response of ∼85 % in the mixed fields. REM-500 (tissue-equivalent proportional counter) exhibited a response close to 1.0 in the fast neutron fields and an under-response of ∼50 % in the thermal neutron field.

In this paper, some results of the study on the roles of the dopants in the LiF:Mg,Cu,Na,Si thermoluminescent (TL) material that was developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute for radiation protection are presented. Although there have been many studies to investigate the roles of the dopants in LiF:Mg,Cu,P TL material in the TL process, there are some discrepancies in the understanding of the roles of Cu and P between various researchers. In case of LiF:Mg,Cu,Na,Si TL material, there are a few studies on the roles of the dopants. Three kinds of samples in each of which one dopant is excluded, and the optimised sample, were prepared for this study. The measurements and analysis of the three-dimensional TL spectra, based on the temperature, wavelength and intensity, and the glow curves for those samples are used in this study. The results show that Mg plays a role in the trapping of the charge carriers and Cu plays a role in the luminescence recombination process; however, the effect of Na and Si on the glow curve structure and the TL emission spectra is much less than that of Mg and Cu. It is considered that Na and Si each plays a role in the improvement of the luminescence efficiency.

LiF-based thermoluminescence (TL) materials have been widely used for radiation dosimetry due to their attractive features. LiF:Mg,Cu,P is one of the most sensitive tissue-equivalent TL materials, approximately 40 times more sensitive than LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100), but it has two main drawbacks: a thermal loss of the TL sensitivity when annealed at temperatures>240 degrees C, and a relatively high-residual signal. Recently, LiF:Mg,Cu,Na,Si TL material was developed to overcome these drawbacks at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, but it provided only marginal improvements in reducing the residual signal. The newly developed LiF:Mg,Cu,Si TL material has a significantly lower residual signal and a better stability to thermal treatments. In this article, the preparation method and some dosimetric properties (sensitivity and residual signal) of the new LiF:Mg,Cu,Si TL material are presented. At the end of the preparation procedures, a dual-step annealing method is introduced and this has proved as a very efficient method to reduce the high-temperature peak and is the cause of residual signal. Therefore, the high-temperature peak in the glow curve was significantly reduced. The sensitivity is approximately 20 times higher than that of TLD-100 and the residual signal was estimated to be approximately 0.04%.

LiF:Mg,Cu,Si held in Harshaw neutron TLD badge holders for the dosimetry in the mixed field of neutron and gamma rays was found to be less than 0.1 as against the maximum permitted value of 0.4.