Complementary approach for heavy ion dosimetry with Ag+-doped phosphate glasses

Abstract

The Ag+-doped phosphate glass is well-known as a personal dosimeter based on theradio-photo-luminescence (RPL) detection. The intense luminescence due to the ionizing radiation is emitted by the excitation with ultraviolet light, which is proportional to the amount of the irradiated dose. Recently, we have found out this glass can be operated as a nuclear track etch detector [1]. The glass is etchable in the alkaline solutions and able to form etch pit for heavy ion irradiation. It means that we can observe not only RPL but also nuclear etched tracks in the same glass. The luminescence efficiency strongly depends on the LET (linear energy transfer) of heavy ions, which drastically decreases at the high LET region of > 10 keV/μm. For Xe ion beam irradiation, very high LET particles of several thousand keV/μm, the absorbed dose obtained from RPL underestimates ~70% for calibrated ionization chamber output. Meanwhile, the dose obtained from LET spectrum of nuclear etched tracks is good agreement with ionization chamber’s. The physical quantities due to the different physical processes of excitation and ionization were successfully observed in the same glass plate, which shows good correlation between RPL and nuclear etched tracks for several LET data points. We found a complementary approach of radiation dose evaluation by combining both information of RPL and nuclear etched tracks. The nuclear track detection would supply the alternative signals in the glass dosimeter.The 26th International Conference on Nuclear Tracks in Solid

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