Tests method for space-ionizing-radiation-induced coloration in glasses

According to complexity of space ionizing radiation, from study on kinetic of space-ionizing-radiation-induced coloration in glasses, this paper discussed problems faced in performance tests of space-ionizing-radiation-induced coloration in glasses, and a method of performance tests based on kinetic was proposed. Using this method, space radiation induced coloration in the glass serving in a given orbital (perigee 350 km, apogee 425 km, orbital inclination 51.6°) were analyzed. It can be seen from the results, after 20 years in the orbital, the blue region optical transmission of the K9-HL glass decreases severely, leading to the glass's turning light yellow, and it certainly will do harm to the glass's usage as a fine optical material. Additionally, the applicability of performance tests of space-ionizing-radiation-induced coloration in glasses using ⁶⁰Co-γ ray was discussed. It can be seen from the results, it gives to a large error using ⁶⁰Co-γ ray as radiation resource to test space-ionizing-radiation-induced coloration in glasses, and the phenomenon is due to it that ⁶⁰Co-γ ray has a large penetration depth in the glass and the relaxation process of color centers is not considered. (authors)