Measurement of photon energy and dose rate.
According to ICRP 60, the radiation weighting factor for photon radiation is set equal to one, irrespective of photon energy and dose rate. However, it is well known that the relative biological effectiveness is not constant for all photon energies and also depends on the dose rate. If these dependencies are to be considered, both the photon energy and the dose rate should be measured. This paper describes the extent to which these quantities can be measured for photons with the available instruments. For individual monitoring the existing dosemeters are mainly used to measure the dose, and so values or estimates of both the dose rate and the photon energy are only available for specially designed instruments as additional information. Some passive dosemeters as well as a few direct reading electronic dosemeters can provide information on photon energy. In addition, some of the direct reading electronic dosemeters have the capability to provide dose rate information. For workplace monitoring the dose rate is the main measured quantity, and so dose rate values are always available. Moreover, there are some special instruments available in the market that are designed to measure photon energy.
Ambrosi
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Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Bundesallee 100, D-38116 Braunschweig, Germany. peter.ambrosi@ptb.de
D006801:Humans; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D017785:Photons; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011834:Radiation Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation; D011874:Radiometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012062:Relative Biological Effectiveness