Fast cooling and computerised glow curve deconvolution in routine personnel monitoring with TLD-100

Fast cooling of LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) thermoluminescent (TL) detectors after short-term regeneration in combination with computerised glow curve deconvolution (CGCD) has been investigated. The combined use of these methods can replace all standard annealing procedures for the stabilisation and regeneration of the detectors and significantly reduce processing times in routine personnel monitoring. After fast cooling the glow peaks of TLD-100 exhibit a complex fading behaviour and time-dependent change of their physical peak parameters during storage at room temperature for several weeks. A fast and numerical robust algorithm based on first order kinetics Randall-Wilkins model (RW) has been developed for the CGCD. The proposed algorithm fits the requirements for use in routine personnel monitoring and is capable of analysing glow curves of TLD-100 chips in a dose range between 3 mu Gy and several Gy. The method reduces the lower limit of detection and increases the accuracy of the dose estimation. It replaces all annealing and cooling procedures which require additional equipment and saves up to 65% of processing time for the readout and regeneration cycle, including individual detector calibration.