Comparison of OSL and TL dosimetry

systems against IEC and ICRP standards

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panelI. Zidouh , A. Arectout , M. Bellahsaouia , D. Elaarabi , H. Ch
a b a a

amlal , B. Maroufi , Y. Sadeq , M. Tazi , J. Rodenas , H. Boukhal

d a d d c b

, E. Chakir a

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110732Get rights and content

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0969804323000854

Abstract
Personal and environmental radiation monitoring services are
widely used through luminescent techniques. In this paper, we
practiced performance testing on thermoluminescent and optically
stimulated luminescent dosimeters by assessing their homogeneity,
linearity, energy, and angular dependence tests. The IEC and ICRP
requirements were used to compare the performance response
of dosimeters. Based on the experimental results, we realized that
both detectors comply with the international criteria. The
homogeneity percentage was 8.9% and 13.7% for TL and OSL
detectors, respectively. The percentage deviation of the linearity
test does not exceed 10% for both dosimeters except for
the TL dosimeters at low irradiation dose. For the angular
dependence, deviations were less than 2% for TLDs and 5% for
OSLDs. These detectors display mean values of the relative energy
response of −15.29% and −6.51% for OSL and TL detectors.
Generally, TL materials manifested low sensitivity to radiation dose
levels. On the other hand, the OSLDs demonstrated a more
pronounced under-response to energy beam qualities than TLDs.
Regarding COV tests, TL and OSL dosimeters have passed the c2
test.
Introduction
For workers in all applications of ionizing radiation, a passive
dosimetry system is the standard radiation protection equipment.
This system is composed of dosimeters and their associated
readers. To ensure safe exposure levels, dosimeters are meant to
assess the effective dose by evaluating the personal deep dose
equivalent (Hp(10)) or the shallow dose (Hp(0.07)) and, the ambient
equivalent dose (H*(10)). Thus, dosimetry procedures could
routinely be applied to ensure that levels set by regulatory bodies
are not exceeded (Yahaya et al., 2019).
Thermoluminescence (TL) and Optically Stimulated Luminescence
(OSL) techniques are widely used in individual monitoring for the
evaluation of dose quantities. The detectors store energy while
exposed to ionizing radiation. In order to evaluate the amount of
energy stored, it is necessary to heat the TL detectors to a
temperature of 300 °C releasing the energy in form of light (Yahaya
et al., 2019). Exposing OSL dosimeters to visible light stimulates
trapped electrons to recombine, resulting in the emission of optical
photons (Kerns et al., 2011). In both situations, the amount of light
emitted during the readout process is proportional to the radiation
dose received by each dosimeter (Antonio and Caldas, 2014).
The TL detectors are commercially available in diverse forms, the
well-known one is the Lithium Fluoride crystals activated by
magnesium and titanium (TLD-100). The main advantages of the
TLD-100 are their low cost, easy handling, good sensitivity, and
reusability (Yahaya et al., 2019). Although recently introduced, OSL
dosimeters (AL2O3:C) are increasingly used due to some notable
advantages such as multiple re-analysis, high sensitivity, and low
fading (Hashim et al., 2018).
It is of great importance that these passive dosimeters provide dose
values being as accurate as possible and ensure conformity with
international standards of radiation protection. Hence, the dosimetry
system is expected to follow type testing procedures proposed by
international norms. In this paper, the standard followed was the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This standard has
been updated from (IEC 61066:1991) to the recent version IEC
62387. (IEC 62387: 2012) The IEC 62387 is a more comprehensive
standard applicable to various passive dosimetry systems (L. Luo et
al., 2017). The IEC standard gathers different type testing
experiments that range from non-linearity to energy and angular
tests. The inhomogeneity of batch dosimeters and the non-linearity
dependence of response dose were performed as a crucial step in
the work of (Del Sol Fernández et al., 2016), (Kouakou et al., 2019)
and (Mora & Porras-Chaverri, n.d.-a) for the performance
evaluation of TL materials (Hashim et al., 2018). Also studied the
performance of the InLight dosimeters at delivered doses below
50 mSv in 60Co teletherapy unit. The energy test of the TLD
materials was performed by (Kouakou et al., 2019), (Abushab et al.,
2017), (Carinou et al., 2008) and (Nunn et al., 2008). Additionally,
this experience was carried out by (Kadir et al., 2013) and
(Apostolakopoulos et al., 2019) to compare the energy influence on
the TL material response with the OSL detector response.
Additionally, the angular dependence of InLight dosimeters was
evaluated by (Antonio and Caldas, 2014) while (Kouakou et al.,
2019) studied the effect of angle dependence for the TL materials
(Dong et al., 2011). performed a study to provide fundamental data
for the use of the PLDs (photoluminescent dosimeters) by
comparing their angular dependence to those obtained by TLDs.
Both the angular and energy dependence tests were performed by
(Apostolakopoulos et al., 2019) for TLDs (containing MTS-N or
MCP-N) and OSLDs (containing AL2O3:C) by applying irradiations
from multi-energetic fields and various directions of incidence.
Many workers have decided to analyze their dose results using the
International Commission of Radiation Protection (ICRP) criteria
limits expressed by the “so-called” trumpet curve (ICRP 60). These
international limits are meant to evaluate the acceptability of any
dose quantity, i.e. the acceptance rate of a dosimetry system. For
this (Hashim et al., 2018), studied the dose accuracy of OSL
dosimeters while (Mora & Porras-Chaverri, n.d.-a) focused on TL
materials acceptance.
In terms of the readout component (Wan Ikmal, 2016), decided to
study the performance of the two new InLight readers, Auto 200
and Auto 500 compared to the microStar reader. For this, dose
results were confronted with the trumpet curve requirements.
Furthermore, dose values acquired in occupational radiation
monitoring are small and subject to statistical fluctuations.
Therefore, the coefficient of variation (COV) of the relevant dose
value is a pertinent tool to evaluate the dosimetry system. The
criteria shown in IEC 62387, has been used in the work of (L. Z.
Luo et al., 2008), (L. Luo et al., 2017) and (Malthez et al., 2018).
This work aims to evaluate the performance of TL and OSL
dosimeters against international standards IEC/ICRP for referenced
irradiation beams. Those devices are vital for several applications
such as radiotherapy where the accuracy of dose determination can
affect the life of patients. Moreover, the personal monitoring of
occupational exposure to radiation of workers (e.g. Radiologists,
Medical physicists,.) relies on the judicious selection of a passive
dosimeter. Therefore, numerous tests were established to ensure
that the outcomes of TL and OSL dosimeters were precisely
determined. To do this, the equivalent deep dose Hp(10) was
assessed at each experiment and studied against the international
criteria.

Section snippets
Equipment and irradiation process
For the sake of this work, the Thermo fisher scientific dosimetry
system was used. It consisted of thermoluminescent dosimeters
(TLD) with their associated reader device, a Harshaw model 8800
Plus. The TLD-100 card holds up 4 positions, with 2 filled with
thermoluminescent crystals of LiF:Mg,Ti encapsulated in Teflon and
mounted on an aluminum slider. The TLD chips have nominal
dimension of 3.2 × 3.2 × 0.38 mm. The measurement of equivalent
dose Hp(10) and shallow dose Hp(0.07) is enabled by

Homogeneity
For the homogeneity test, measured equivalent
doses Hp(10) showed average results presenting differences from
the true value of 0.03 and 4.25%, respectively for TL and OSL
detectors The corresponding standard deviations (Table 1, Table 2)
of doses from the mean value demonstrated values, in general, less
than 5% for the dosimeter location irrespectively. However, two
OSL dosimeters were found with 6.87 and −6.01% which was
slightly over the 5% criteria. Even with these slight deviations, the
Conclusion
The aim of this study was analyzing the performance of
Thermoluminescent dosimeters and the Inlight optically stimulated
luminescent dosimeters to the IEC and ICRP standards. The
parameters that were assessed are: inhomogeneity, non-linearity,
energy dependence and angle dependence of dosimeters. The
delivered dose used in the experiences were ranging from 0.1 to
300 mSv. The detectors were tested for beam energies between
48 keV and 1.25 MeV and angles in the range 0°- ±75°. It was
found that

CRediT authorship contribution statement

I. Zidouh: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft,
Methodology, Formal analysis. A. Arectout: Visualization,
Validation, Methodology, Formal analysis. M.
Bellahsaouia: Visualization, Methodology. D.
Elaarabi: Investigation, Data curation. H. Chamlal: Resources. B.
Maroufi: Resources. Y. Sadeq: Resources. M. Tazi: Resources. J.
Rodenas: Visualization, Project administration, Investigation. H.
Boukhal: Visualization, Investigation. E. Chakir: Visualization,
Validation, Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.