The use of optically stimulated luminescence from AL2O3:C in the dosimetry of high-energy heavy charged particle fields

This paper presents two different approaches of quantifying the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) response of Al(2)O(3):C to high-energy heavy charged particles (HCPs). The OSL efficiency of Al(2)O(3):C exposed to different HCPs is defined as the sensitivity of the material to HCPs normalised by the sensitivity to gamma. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of introducing a 'mean efficiency' eta(mean), which when used in conjunction with the total gamma dose D(gamma) measured for a mixed radiation exposure allows for the determination of the absorbed dose without the need to determine the individual contributions of different types of radiation to the OSL signal. We tested the hypothesis that information regarding the 'mean efficiency' eta(mean) is contained in the shape of the OSL decay curve, using several approaches in the analysis of the OSL data. This analysis was applied to various mixed field irradiations performed at the HIMAC facility, Chiba, Japan. The results of this analysis are discussed.