TLD apparatus and method with elapsed time read-out capability

摘要

A novel apparatus and fully automatic, computer implemented method for making radiation dose measurements using composite glow curve data obtained with a thermoluminescent dosimetry reader wherein such composite glow curve data is composed of the superposition of plural overlapping glow peaks plus instrumental and dosimeter background. The background component of the composite glow curve is subtracted out by using an automatic peak search technique followed by individual chip background subtraction based upon the extrapolation of the background curve under the glow curve by fitting on both sides of the curve outside the region of the peaks. Following background subtraction and automatic identification of low temperature signal limits, the leading edges of higher temperature dosimetric peaks are extrapolated to lower temperatures to subtract from the glow curve a lower temperature dosimetric peak without affecting the higher temperature dosimetric peaks. Computerized deconvolution also is effected automatically by computing initial parameters directly from the glow curve shape and with reduced processing time by applying analytical differentiation to a model equation. The separated peaks are then used to obtain meaningful absorbed dose information including elapsed time between irradiation and read-out.