Albedo dosimetry system for routine personnel monitoring

The universal albedo neutron dosemeter used with automatic thermoluminescence readout systems manufactured by Alnor, Harshaw, Panasonic and Vinten, is a two component neutron dosemeter consisting of an albedo and an additional thermal neutron detector and may also incorporate a recoil etched track detector inside the boron-loaded plastic encapsulation. Within routine monitoring, the variety of neutron fields can be reduced to four: (N1) of reactors, low-energy linear accelerators, (N2) nuclear fuel processing, (N3) radioactive neutron sources, (N4) high energy accelerators. Within one area, the albedo neutron response does not vary by more than a factor of two. The albedo dosemeter system became the official neutron dosemeter in the Federal Republic of Germany, thereby replacing the neutron film dosemeter. The technique of dose estimation, the classification in stray neutron fields, the dosimetric properties, such as dose range, energy and angular response, uncertainties of neutron dose measurement and results of routine applications are all described. (author)