Dead Seasalt as a thermoluminescent phosphor for beta irradiation dosimetry

The thermoluminescence (TL) response of pure and Eu-doped Dead Sea-(DS-) NaCl crystals was investigated after subjected to various beta excitation and irradiation at room temperature from 90Sr/90Y beta source with doses up to 4 Gy. The naturally occurring DS-NaCl samples result in broad glow curves characterized by high TL intensity and TL peak with maximum temperature observed around 200 °C and exhibiting a linear dose response between 0.25 and 1.25 Gy. In this respect, the crystals are considered useful to be passive radiation detectors for TL-dosimetry and applications. The TL measurements of the purposely added Eu and irradiated to 1 Gy crystals indicate a strong influence of the TL glow curves and result in a split of the single TL peak to two prominent peaks centered around 200–250 °C, with varying intensity in a manner that depends on the annealing temperature and in favor to the deeper trap peak. The intensity enhancement after doping with europium to the lattice is approximately sixfold in favor to the prominent TL peak detected near 200 °C. Phase purity and crystalline structure of the DS-natural and Eu-doped salts were analyzed by powder X-ray diffraction technique and comparison indicates good match with pure NaCl crystalline structure.