Self optical attenuation coefficient of TL glow in BeO detectors

Thin ceramic pellets of BeO are now being used in many institutions as cheap, reliable, personnel monitoring dosemeters. Morphologically, in contrast to LiF TLDs, the BeO detectors have an opaque microporous, and hard ceramic constitution. It is evident that during the readout of BeO chips, exposed to gamma rays, where the TL emission centres are uniformly distributed throughout the bulk of the detector, a substantial amount of TL output is absorbed inside the chip. The present paper describes the experimental procedure for the determination of the self-absorption coefficient of TL light in the BeO Thermalox 995 detectors. The results show that the self absorption effect should be considered when comparing the TL readouts measured with BeO detectors of different thickness. (author)