Studies on automatic hot gas reader used in the countrywide personnel monitoring programme

In India, approximately 58,000 radiation workers are monitored using locally made CaSO4:Dy teflon embedded thermoluminescence dosemeter (TLD) badge system. The automatic hot gas readers developed locally are also used in TL measurements. The hot gas reader system has many advantages over the manual readers used previously and has completely replaced the manual reader system in all TLD personnel monitoring units in India. In the present study, the new reader system is studied and a theoretical attempt has been made to interpret the experimentally obtained results. The glow curves are generated theoretically and are also plotted experimentally. It has been found that the heat capacity of the heating gas, which is responsible for the transfer of heat, has a role in deciding the position of peak and is verified experimentally using different gas flow rates of nitrogen and argon as heating gases in the reader. The theoretical study may also be helpful in fitting the experimentally obtained glow curves and, therefore, the elimination of unwanted non-radiation-induced contributions, such as dark current, electronic spikes, light leakage and triboluminescence that generally distort the glow curve shape, can be achieved.