Thermal neutron equivalent dose measurements with nanostructured zirconia

Abstract

This paper reports the experimental results concerning the thermoluminescent measurements of thermal neutron using nanostructured zirconium oxide (ZrO₂) powder prepared by the sol–gel method. Transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques were used for morphological and structural characterization of the compound. Thermal annealing processes for the precipitates were studied. It was observed that the crystalline structure and the crystallinity of the powders depend on the annealing temperature. For temperatures higher than 1100 °C, the material presents the monoclinic phase with average nanocrystallite sizes ranging from 8–10 nm up to ∼40 nm. These zirconium oxide materials developed in our laboratory were used in this investigation. Within the experimental uncertainties, these measurements were compared with those obtained using the well-known gamma rays sensitive lithium fluoride (LiF:Mg,Cu,P), also developed in our laboratory.

Keywords:

• thermal neutron dose
• neutron dosimetry
• nanocrystals of zirconia
• thermoluminescence

Acknowledgements

This work was supported under the CONACYT Project No. 67333 and IPN Research Project No. 20071529. The author is grateful to Prof. Dietmar Fink for his guidance and suggestions for this paper.