Laboratory facilities and recommendations for the characterization of biological ultraviolet dosimeters

Abstract

A laboratory facility for characterizing biological dosimeters for the measurement of UV radiation has been built and tested. The facility is based on a solar simulator, stabilized by photofeedback, and monitored by a spectroradiometer, with a versatile filter arrangement. This enables the following characteristics of the dosimeters to be ascertained: spectral response, linearity, and reciprocity; angular acceptance and response; calibration in simulated sunlight. The system has been tested on a variety of dosimeters and has the potential to be used with other radiometers, subject currently to the size of their active surface.

Two methods for direct assessment of the Vitamin D synthetic capacity of sunlight and artificial UV sources

“…It is significant that laboratory and field tests showed close agreement of the experimentally measured and calculated concentrations of previtamin D when the spectroradiometric data of a UV source were used at the model input [6,7].…”

“…Radiometric characterization of the 'D-dosimeter' has been performed at the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB) [7]. UV irradiation from the xenon arc lamp with a number of the broadband and narrow-band (∆λ = 2 nm) filters was used to link physical and erythemal UV doses with concentrations of accumulated previtamin D.…”

“…Although a number of UV radiometers have been designed for the UV monitoring, in most cases their spectral sensitivity corresponds to the CIE erythema action spectrum [5] that differs noticeably from the action spectrum of Vitamin D 1 synthesis [6]. As a result, the ratio between erythemal and 'antirachitic' doses is not constant with the wavelength [7] and may vary over a wide range with the constantly changing spectral composition of solar UV-B radiation. Hence, standard broadband radiometers are unable to ensure quantitative estimation of the Vitamin D 3 synthetic capacity of sunlight from the solar UV radiometric data.…”

Metrology of the vitamin-D-synthetic activity of UV lamps

“…Special calibration facility was used to establish the relation between physical, erythemal and antirachitic UV doses for quasi-monochromatic UV irradiation [19].…”

Application of a diode array spectroradiometer to measuring the spectral scattering properties of cloud types in a laboratory

“…This was found to require at least 30 min, and hence this time was allowed between ignition of the lamp and the taking of measurements. To mitigate against any extra instability, as seen by Bolsee et al (2000), the scattered spectrum is normalised by the direct beam spectrum for each cloud sample.…”