Abstract
The dosimetric characteristics were studied for natural zircon extracted from beach sand of grain size 106 micron to assess whether it can be used as a retrospective dosimeter. Zircon was extracted from the beach sand of Tirunelveli district, Tamilnadu. By analyzing the TL peaks between the room temperature and 450°C it was found to consist of two low temperature peaks (LTP) at 99 and 128°C and the high temperature broad peak (HTP) at 270°C when read at a heating rate of 5°C/sec. The initial rise method, Tm–Tstop, various heating rate method (VHR), Beta dose response and fading studies were carried out for the HTP. From the initial rise method the activation energy levels were found to vary from 0.8 to 1.6 eV. By the Tm–Tstop method it was found that the high temperature broad peak (HTP) at 270°C was a superposition of 6 TL peaks. The Im− Tm dependence curve was plotted and the value of the kinetic order was found to be 1.3. Beta irradiation between the dose levels 0.5 Gy to 100 Gy was used to study the linearity of dose response. It's observed that the zircon sample shows linear dose response up to 100 Gy of beta dose. Fading of the high temperature peak within 1 hour under bright sunlight was found to be ∼21% and after 24 hours the sample exhibited a fading of 47%. Repeatability test were also carried out for the HTP.
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