A TL study of protective glasses of mobile phones for retrospective dosimetry

Abstract

Several studies have shown that certain components of mobile phones, such as electronic components, display or touch screen glass, are suitable as emergency dosimeters in case of radiological incidents. However, so far the methods are frequently destructive and in case of a dose assessment the mobile phone will be destroyed. In order to overcome this problem, alternative materials need to be sought and further research is necessary. Building on results of a previous study, we further investigated protective glasses in this work, which have become an alternative material for dose reconstruction. Protective glasses are easy to sample and cheap, have become very popular to protect the surface of phones, can be easily replaced without complete destruction of an expensive smartphone, thus a dose assessment method based on this material will potentially find much greater public acceptance. The aim of this study was to optimize the detection window by systematically investigating the radiation-induced TL signals and intrinsic zero dose signals. Using two selected detection windows, the long-term and optical stability of the TL signals were investigated. The set of nine different protective glass samples studied fell into two groups with different fading and optical bleaching characteristics. Further research is necessary in order to reduce the zero dose signal, to reinvestigate the dosimetric properties and to verify the final protocol using a realistic irradiation test.