Present status and future trends in the development of thermoluminescent materials

There is a continuous growing interest in developing materials for TL radiation dosimetry, especially in the fields of medical, environmental and personal applications. Although several phosphors are being used in these fields today, many efforts are being made in order to develop new TL materials, having better tissue equivalence, and increased sensitivity to gamma radiation, high energy photons, electrons, neutrons and heavy ions. Different preparation methods and properties of several TL materials have been studied so far and it is found that many of these materials constitute a class of TL phosphors with good performances, especially when they are doped with suitable activators. Most widely used and extensively studied materials for TL dosimetry (TLD) are fluorides, sulfates, borates and sulfides of alkali and alkaline earth elements. Besides these, have been developed other phosphors based on metal oxides and mixtures of metal oxides, halo sulfates and different kinds of glasses and perovskites. In this paper, a review of the status and future trends in the development of TL materials is presented.