title: The thermoluminescence response of doped SiO2 optical fibres subjected to fast neutrons.
abstract: This paper describes a preliminary study of the thermoluminescence (TL) response of doped SiO(2) optical fibres subjected to (241)AmBe neutron irradiation. The TL materials, which comprise Al- and Ge-doped silica fibres, were exposed in close contact with the (241)AmBe source to obtain fast neutron interactions through use of measurements obtained with and without a Cd filter (the filter being made to entirely enclose the fibres). The neutron irradiations were performed for exposure times of 1-, 2-, 3-, 5- and 7-days in a neutron tank filled with water. In this study, use was also made of the Monte Carlo N-particle (MCNP) code version 5 (V5) to simulate the neutron irradiations experiment. It was found that the commercially available Ge-doped and Al-doped optical fibres show a linear dose response subjected to fast neutrons from (241)AmBe source up to seven days of irradiations. The simulation performed using MCNP5 also exhibits a similar pattern, albeit differing in sensitivity. The TL response of Ge-doped fibre is markedly greater than that of the Al-doped fibre, the total absorption cross section for Ge in both the fast and thermal neutrons region being some ten times greater than that of Al.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Darul, Takzim, Malaysia. suhairul@utm.my
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hashim
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Bradley
authors.forename: M I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Saripan
authors.forename: A T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Ramli
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wagiran
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009502:Neutrons; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D013819:Thermoluminescent Dosimetry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D012822:Silicon Dioxide