Thermally stimulated luminescence of Li2B4O7:Cu,Ag,P+PTFE

Lithium borate is one of the most important materials for thermoluminescent dosimetry of ionizing radiation due to its human tissue equivalence. This work presents results of thermoluminescent studies of an improved lithium borate material doped with copper, silver and phosphate ions embedded in PTFE, under exposure to 60Co gamma radiation. Results show that the sensitivity of this new material is around 30% that of commercial TLD-100 (LiF:Mg,Ti) dosimeter and about 120 times greater than that of TLD-800. The TL response of this new material is linear over the extensive dose range 0.001-100 Gy. Its minimal detecting dose is 0.09 mGy, the coefficient of variability for 10 cycles consisting of annealing, irradiation and readout, is ± 3.5% and the dosimetric glow peak shows general-order kinetics. In addition, a morphological, structural and photoluminescent characterization of this TL detector was performed. Results show that this new detector may be appropriate for dosimetry applications.