NEUTRON-GAMMA MIXED FIELD DOSIMETRY USING A 6LiF:Mg,Cu,P THERMOLUMINESCENT DOSIMETER

Abstract

Sat is fac tory dis crim i na tion be tween the neu tron and gamma com po nents in a mixed neu - tron-gamma field is one of the most im por tant ob jec tives of neu tron do sim e try. One of the com mon tech niques for es ti mat ing gamma and neu tron dose com po nents in mixed neu - tron-gamma fields is the two peak method. This method has been ap plied us ing do sim e ters such as LiF:Mg,Ti, but in the pres ent work, a 6LiF:Mg,Cu,P do sim e ter has been used, whose thermoluminescence sen si tiv ity is much higher than the LiF:Mg,Ti do sim e ter, and there fore, if ap pro pri ate re sults are achieved, it can dras ti cally re duce the dose es ti ma tion thresh old. Ap - pli ca bil ity of 6LiF:Mg,Cu,P for es ti ma tion of the gamma dose us ing the two peak method in a mixed ther mal neu tron-gamma ra di a tion field was stud ied. The ra tio of the area un der neath the high tem per a ture thermoluminescence glow peak to do sim e try peak of this phos phor in an Am-Be neu tron field is 0.127, while this ra tio in a pure gamma ray field of 137Cs is 0.039. The cal i bra tion curves were ob tained by sep a rately ir ra di at ing 6LiF:Mg,Cu,P chips with known gamma and neu tron doses. Re sults show that 6LiF:Mg,Cu,P can be used to es ti mate the con tri bu tions of neu tron and gamma doses in a mixed neu tron-gamma field by us ing the two peak method.