Emergency dosimetry with electronic components from mobile phones

by Dr Eftychia Kouroukla (Ustinov College, Durham University, Stockton Rd, Durham, UK)

Friday 20 Nov 2015, 10:00 → 11:00 Europe/Rome

Director meeting room (INFN-LNL)

The probability of occurrence of small or large scale radiation accidents calls for the development of significantly improved emergency dosimetry capabilities. The primary task of emergency dosimetry is to determine the priority of medical intervention of exposed individuals from the public based on the level of exposure (i.e., medical triage). Currently, there are three approaches, namely biodosimetry, physical dosimetry, and dose modeling, as well as, a wide variety of biological and physical objects that have the potential to evaluate the cumulative absorbed dose following an incident. For example, ceramic components in portable electronic devices are potentially suitable for use as fortuitous thermoluminescent or optically stimulated luminescent dosemeters. Specifically, experimental investigations carried out using alumina surface mount resistors (SMRs) from mobile phones have indicated favourable dosimetry properties (e.g., linear dose response over a wide range of doses, low-dose detection capabilities of the order of mGy), while the proximity of these devices to the human body makes the evaluation of whole body or organ body doses very probable. The ability of alumina-SMRs from mobile phones to provide estimates of whole body or organ-specific doses has, recently, been investigated by our group using both experimental and simulation approaches. As will be discussed, the location of the phone relative to it’s owner’s body and the nature and direction of exposure are the primary factors leading to uncertainties in calculating the dose actually received by individuals in an emergency events. When sufficient knowledge of the aforementioned factors is available, the SMR-Mobile Phone fortuitous dosimetry system is capable of providing whole body doses with uncertainties of a few tens of percent.