Av. Parisi et Jcf. Wong, A NEW METHOD FOR MEASUREMENT OF ERYTHEMAL IRRADIANCE, Photodermatology, photoimmunology & photomedicine, 12(4), 1996, pp. 171-179
A composite system of four dosimeter materials, nalidixic acid (NDA),
polysulphone, 8-methoxypsoralen (8-MOP) and phenothiazine, is presente
d for the passive measurement of the UV spectrum. The properties of th
e materials were investigated and found to be suitable to allow the ma
terials to be applied in a system to evaluate the UV spectrum. The eva
luation of the spectrum reduces by 70% the errors arising when only po
lysulphone dosimeters are employed to measure the exposure due to a so
urce spectrum that differs from the spectrum they have been calibrated
against. Knowledge of the spectrum provides an advantage over the Rob
ertson-Berger meter and polysulphone dosimeters, as the biologically e
ffective exposure for any biological process may be calculated with be
tter than 20% accuracy. The composite system was miniaturised to a siz
e of 3 cmX3 cm to eliminate errors due to spatial variation of the spe
ctrum and to allow the application at any site on objects with complic
ated topography in a similar way as polysulphone dosimeters. Unlike th
e polysulphone dosimeters, the composite system does not require calib
ration against a specific source of UV in order to maintain a high deg
ree of accuracy in the collected data.