Advancements in accuracy of the alanine EPR dosimetry system Part III: Usefulness of an adjacent reference sample

High stability of the radiation-induced radicals in alanine and the high re producibility of alanine response to radiation make it possible to determin e radiation doses accurately with Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spe ctral analysis. Small uncontrollable variations of the EPR spectrometer sen sitivity, however, can significantly deteriorate the accuracy of the method . The errors due to these variations I-an be eliminated or markedly decreas ed if an adjacent reference sample (such as a synthetic ruby crystal) is pe rmanently present in the cavity, and if ratios of the alanine and ruby sign al amplitudes are used throughout the dosimetric session instead of the abs olute alanine amplitudes. This paper addresses methodological aspects of us ing such adjacent reference samples in alanine dosimetry and provides illus trations of the usefulness of this technique. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.