A highly neutron sensitive material for thermoluminescence based personnel neutron dosimetry applications

Radiation Dosimetry is a research field of specialized importance involving material development and its dosimetric characterization, subjecting it to different types of radiations. Among dosimetry of several ionizing radiations (e.g., α, β, γ and n etc.) neutron dosimetry is of greater concern as the Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE) of neutron is very high as compared with others. Thermoluminescence (TL) is one of the oldest techniques for neutron dosimetry which uses the standard ^6/7LiF:Mg,Ti as the host material. Few of its disadvantages are complex glow curve structure, complicated annealing treatment, retention of residual signal etc. Hence, there is great scope for the development of new and better material for the above-mentioned applications. In view of the above, the nearly tissue equivalent (Zeff=9.1) LiMgBO_3:0.06Tb³⁺ has been developed. It is clearly seen that, the presently developed LiMgBO_3:0.06Tb³⁺ material has very simple glow curve structure having a single TL peak as compared to the standard LiF:Mg,Ti dosimeter having complex and multi peak pattern. Most importantly, the neutron induced TL sensitivity of the presently developed material was found to be about 2.6 times higher than that of the existing dosimeter when compared the area under the curve of both the dosimeters