Preparation and Characterization of a Glass Thermoluminescnce Dosimeter

Abstract

Thermoluminescence (TL) properties of improved synthetic borosilicate glass having a composition20 SiO2- 20 Na2CO3- (60-x) H3BO3- x ZnO (where x= 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 mol %) are studied. The glasses were prepared by the melt quenching method and irradiated with gamma doses in the range of 0.5– 500 Gy. Some properties such as dose response, minimum detectable dose, reproducibility of the response, thermal and optical fading, and (IR) absorption were studied. Optimum glass composition with a good linear TL gamma dose response over a wide dose range, as well as low fading and excellent reproducibility are obtained. These appealing features indicated that; this new synthetic TL glass material is useful in many radiation detection applications. Until this moment, there was no detailed study concerning the kinetic parameters of zinc doped borosilicate glass thermoluminescent (TL) material. Evaluating activation energy (E), frequency factor (s) and order of kinetics (b) was conventionally obtained by Peak Shape (PS) method, Repeated Initial Rise (RIR), and Variable Heating Rate (VHR) methods. The obtained results indicated that the zinc doped borosilicate glass glow curve after gamma irradiation is legitimately a superposition of seven interfered glow peaks. Therefore, Additive Dose (AD), Repeated Initial Rise (RIR) and Variable Heating Rate (VHR) methods together with Computerized Glow Curve Deconvolution (CGCD) method by using the TL Anal software have been applied to determine the kinetic parameters of zinc borosilicate glass due to the existence of several nearby overlapped peaks. RIR method gives the value of ± 2.3 % average variation, for the activation energies, compared with those obtained by CGDC. The obtained results clearly show the consequences reliability.