The investigation of dosimetric properties and neutron dose-response of metal and lanthanide doped Li2B4O7 compounds using TL and OSL techniques

The main purposes of this study are to synthesize the novel thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) materials based on lithium tetraborate (Li2B4O7) synthesized using solution combustion technique, to provide their structural characterizations with XRD, SEM and FTIR techniques, to study their dosimetric properties in detail and to investigate their sensitivity to neutron exposures. In order to enhance the TL and OSL signals of undoped Li2B4O7, it was doped with high purity Ca, B, Cu Ag, Al, Be metal group ions and lanthanide group ions of Ce, Yb, Dy, Gd, Tm and Sm in single and double combinations. The synthesized materials were sintered at 800 oC for 1-4 hours for the crystal formations. The dosimetric properties of Li2B4O7:Cu,B material as a TL dosimeter and Li2B4O7:Ag and Li2B4O7:Ag,Gd materials as OSL dosimeters regarding the TL/OSL signals per unit dose due to their dopings were investigated. Besides these studies, photoluminescence (PL) and X-ray luminescence (XL) spectrums were studied. The kinetic parameters including E, b and s were estimated using the various heating rate, the initial rise, the CGCD, the FGT and the isothermal decay methods. Neutron dose-response of Li210B4O7:Ag,Gd phosphor was investigated under neutron exposure delivered with a 252Cf neutron source.