THE USE OF POWDERED ALANINE AS A SOLID DOSIMETER

Powdered dl-alanine was fabricated to form solid state dosimeters. The irradiated powder has been found to be stable with no measurable change in the number of free radicals created 14 days after irradiation and only a 5% decay 90 days after irradiation. Plastic and glass speci-men holders for the ESR unit were used as part of a search for a holder giving the best signal-to-noise ratio. Preliminary experimental results with an accuracy of plus or minus 5% have been obtained for gamma irradiated dosimeters between 100 to 100,000 r, beta irradiated dosimeters between 100 to 20,000 rads, proton irradiated dosimeters between 250 2000 rads, and x-ray irradiated dosimeters between 1000 to 20,0000 r. The data have been plotted as the relative ESR intensity in arbitrary units versus dose for the various radiations. (auth)