THE PREDOSE TECHNIQUE

The pre-dose technique has found applications in dating and authentica tion, accident dosimetry and heat treatment studies. It is a technique requiring considerable experimental effort to yield dose estimates, p rimarily due to the complexity of the pre-dose effect on which it is b ased. Nonetheless it has important potential in the dating of ceramics of the last two millennia, in accident dosimetry and in the study of the role of defects in thermoluminescence processes. This paper examin es recent uses of the technique including current research problems an d wider implications of the results of pre-dose studies, in particular the study of the effect in minerals other than quartz. Several questi ons raised in recent papers on the basis of measurements with syntheti c and natural alpha quartz and related to assumptions made in the use of the technique for dose evaluations are also discussed.