Beta ray spectroscopy based on a plastic scintillation detector/silicon surface barrier detector coincidence telescope

Beta radiation is now recognized as a significant radiation safety problem and several international conferences have recently been devoted to the problems of mixed field beta/photon dosimetry. Conventional dosimetry applies algorithms to thermoluminescence dosimetry (TLD) multi-element badges which attempt to extract dose information based on the comparison of Tl signals from 'thick/thin' and/or 'bare/filtered' elements. These may be grossly inaccurate due to inadequate or non-existent knowledge of the energy spectrum of both the beta radiation and the accompanying photon field, as well as other factors. In this paper, we discuss the operation of a beta-ray energy spectrometer based on a two-element.