Effect of the dose rate in irradiation of potassium dihydrogen phosphate single crystals

In this paper, the authors observed and studied for the first time the direct effect of the dose rate in gamma and electron irradiation of KH/sub 2/PO/sub 4/ single crystals on the amount of their radiation damage determined spectrophotometrically according to the additional optical absorption. Specimens of potassium dihydrogen phosphate grown by a hydrothermal method with industrial technology were investigated. The specimens were irradiated on a GUG-120 /sup 60/Co gamma source in the dose range of 1.0.10/sup 3/-2.0.10/sup 5/ Gy at dose rates of 0.15, 0.3, 2.3, and 13 Gy/sec. Electron irradiation was carried out on a U-12 linear accelerator in a pulsed mode. It was found that both electrons and gamma irradiation significantly increased the optical density of the crystals in the UV spectral region.