A PASSIVE NEUTRON DOSIMETER BASED ON A CR-39 TRACK DETECTOR WITH MULTIFIELD EVALUATION

A passive neutron personal dosemeter is proposed which is based on a s ingle CR-39 track detector, covered at four positions with different c onverters and absorbers. Its dose equivalent response has been investi gated with respect to its energy and angle dependence, covering energi es from thermal up to 15 MeV and angles of incidence up to 85 degrees. A position-related readout of the electrochemically etched CR-39 dete ctor resulted in four response functions with significant differences for thermal, intermediate and fast neutrons. By an appropriate linear combination of the readings a dose equivalent response has been achiev ed which varies only within a factor of 2 for thermal neutrons and in the energy range from 20 keV to 15 MeV and shows an acceptable over-re sponse of a factor of 4 for intermediate energy neutrons.