Overview of novel techniques for radiation protection and dosimetry

Abstract

Abstract Generally, the main approaches for assessing the radiation protection (RP) quantities in neutron fields are: i) the use of an instrument with a response to the protection quantity quasi-independent of energy; ii) neutron spectrometry; iii) microdosimetry. The techniques based on the first approach include rem-meters, superheated emulsions and the electronic personal dosemeters. Passive rem-meters have recently been developed for assessing the ambient dose equivalent in pulsed neutron fields around particle accelerators for hadrontherapy and research. Most of these instruments are characterised by a response extended to high-energies (up to a few GeV). An example is given by the GSI-ball, which employs a pair of LiF TLDs as a thermal neutron detector. It is likely that passive instruments will play a fundamental role also for monitoring the neutron fields generated by ultra-high intensity lasers, where the duration of a single pulse is of the order of hundreds femtoseconds. Arrays of tissue-equivalent proportional counters (TEPCs) of a millimetric/sub-millimetric physical size have been developed both for assessing the quality of therapeutic radiation beams and for estimating the RP quantities in low-intensity fields, which may limit the use of conventional microdosemeters. Very satisfactory results were obtained with GEM-based TEPCs and gas microstrip detectors (GMDs). Moreover, mini-TEPCs have been constructed and tested for measuring the quality of hadrontherapy beams (BNCT included). Silicon microdosemeters have also been demonstrated to be very promising for characterizing proton and ion beams for radiation therapy and for estimating the occurrence of single event effects in space applications.