RADIATION ACCIDENT DOSIMETRY ON ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS BY OSL

TLDR

Large‑scale radiation accidents and terrorism threats demand rapid, non‑invasive retrospective dosimetry for population triage. This study aims to assess the feasibility of using electronic components from mobile phones as dosimeters to identify individuals requiring medical treatment. The authors investigated the luminescence responses (OSL, IRSL, TL) of resistors, capacitors, and integrated circuits on mobile‑phone circuit boards as potential dosimeters. Most of these components show radiation‑induced luminescence, with OSL proving most promising; detailed dose‑response, preheating, sensitization, and stability studies on selected resistors, capacitors, and ICs revealed useful dose ranges (0.7–27 Gy for resistors, 0.7–160 Gy for capacitors/ICs) and highlighted their practical strengths and limitations.

Abstract

In the event of large-scale radiation accidents and considering a growing terrorism concern, non-invasive and sufficiently accurate retrospective dosimetry methods are necessary to carry out a fast population triage in order to determine which radiation-exposed individuals need medical treatment. Retrospective dosimetry using different electronic components such as resistors, capacitors, and integrated circuits present on mobile phone circuit boards have been considered. Their response has been investigated with luminescence techniques (OSL, IRSL, and TL). The majority of these electronic components exhibit radiation-induced luminescence signals, and the OSL technique seems the most promising for these materials. Results concerning three types of components that present the most interesting OSL characteristics (in terms of signal annealing and sensitivity) and that are the most often present on mobile phone circuit boards are presented. Preheating effects on OSL signal, sensitization, and dose-response curves from 0.7 to 27 Gy for resistors and from 0.7 to 160 Gy for capacitors and integrated circuits, dose recovery tests, and signal stability 10 h after irradiation have been studied and interests and limits of their use evaluated.