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| Typical Number in Hospital: 1 | Cost Bands: 5 | References: 3 |
This permits an alternative to film badges for the monitoring of cumulative radiation dose to a worker exposed to ionizing radiation. Many crystalline materials can absorb ionizing radiation and store a fraction of the energy by trapping electrons at impurity atoms. If the crystal is heated, this stored energy is released and the resulting radiation is in the visible spectrum. The technique is used for assessing the age of pottery (which contains some quartz) by the energy released on heating due to the cumulative radiation dose since it was fired. In hospitals the process can be simulated by the inclusion of a small quantity of lithium fluoride in (say) Teflon (PTFE) discs. The accumulated radiation dose acquired in the working environment can be assessed by heating the disc to (say) 500[d]C in contact with a photomultiplier tube. This method could potentially replace conventional film badge monitoring techniques.
Content and Design Copyright 2000 Dr. Malcolm C Brown. See Title Page for more details