The photo-transferred thermoluminescence phenomenon in case of emergency dose assessment

Abstract

A major disadvantage of dose reconstruction by means of thermoluminescence (TL) is the fact that during readout of any TL material exposed to ionizing radiation (i.e., during measuring the glow curve), the radiation-induced signal gets lost. Application of the photo-transferred thermoluminescence phenomenon (PTTL) may offer a solution to this problem. In PTTL, the residual signal that is not destroyed by conventional TL readout (because it comes from deeper electron traps) can be readout through simultaneous stimulation by UV light and heating, allowing to obtain information about the absorbed dose in a second run. The present paper describes the application of PTTL for emergency dose assessment. For this, MTS-N thermoluminescent detectors (LiF: Mg, Ti) were exposed using a high-energy Clinac 2300 medical linear accelerator to doses of 100 mGy, 300 mGy, 500 mGy, 700 mGy and 1000 mGy. Irradiation with UV radiation allowed the determination of the optimal heating time of 3 h, while the optimal temperature was identified to be 70 °C. The results obtained demonstrated the usefulness of the PTTL method for emergency dose assessment. The efficiency of the PTTL method was determined as 19%. Finally it was found that the detector background after UV exposure should not be underestimated during routine dose measurements.

A Photo-transfer Thermoluminescence (PTTL) Study of TLD-100 over a Wide Dose Range

“…In addition, it has been reported that the PTTL signal intensity can be increased by heating the samples during UV exposure and by pre-dose sensitized dosimeters [5,15]. A similar study has been performed in recent years by Wrzesień et al [16]. In this study, PTTL properties of TLD-100 were investigated between 100 and 1000mGy.…”

“…Budzanowski et al [9] reported that the ratio of PTTL intensity to TL intensity reached 17% in their study. Similarly, Wrzesień et al [16] obtained this ratio as 19%. These results are almost compatible with our study.…”

“…These results are almost compatible with our study. The slightly higher value seen in both Budzanowski et al [9] and Wrzesień et al [16] is due to the increased PTTL efficiency as a result of heating the dosimeters at the same time during UV exposure.…”

“…The PTTL behavior of TLD-100 has been investigated by various researchers for a long time [5,8,9,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Initial studies performed with TLD-100 have shown that dose reassessment with PTTL is possible for doses higher than 10mGy [11].…”