[Fabrication of annealing equipment for optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dosimeter]

The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dosimeter is a useful detector for measuring absorbed doses of X-rays. A small-type OSL dosimeter, "nanoDot", has recently been developed by Landauer, Inc., who also manufacture "microStar" reading equipment. However, additional annealing equipment is needed if the nanoDot OSL dosimeter is used repeatedly. The aim of this study was to fabricate suitable annealing equipment using commonly available products. Our device positions four fluorescent light tubes in a close configuration. The heat from the fluorescent light tubes is dissipated using fans. Experiments using diagnostic X-ray equipment were carried out to evaluate the capability of our annealing equipment. The results indicated that our equipment can fully anneal the nanoDot OSL dosimeter with annealing times of approximately 20 hours.