Investigation of the use of FXG gel dosimeter for UV radiation detection

The radio-chromic chemical radiation dosimeter is well known type of detectors that have been used in the measurement application of radiation dose resulting for ionizing radiation such as gamma and X-rays. The detector materials consist of mainly water with added gelatin powder that gives the detector its solid shape. Other chemicals sensitive to radiation are also added to form the Ferrous-sulfate Xylenol-orange Gelatin gel detector (FXG). Ionizing radiation effects appears as an increase in the optical absorbance within a defined range of wavelengths located in the visible region of the light spectrum. These visible changes in the materials optical characteristic as a result of radiation exposure is proportional to the radiation absorbed dose at certain wave lengths. Ultraviolet radiation was found to produce similar effects in the FXG detector materials; hence we suggested studying the UV effects in details. It is known that UV radiation carry relatively high quantum energies big enough to enhance important chemical and biological reactions in some exposed medium. This study examines the most important properties required for the FXG detector to be used as a UV monitoring system that is capable of measuring the absorbed UV radiation dose. The study also works on finding chemical detector structure that is easy to be used for simulating the UV interactions with human body. It has been shown that the optical absorbance of standard size FXG samples increases linearly with the exposure time to UV radiation produced by a sun simulator source, when the beam is filtered to produces exposure similar to that found in nature. However, the UV effects are also influenced by the applied UV radiation spectrum used for irradiation as well as the thicknesses of the FXG materials.(authors)