Thermoluminescence sensitivity of daily-use materials

The thermoluminescence (TL) response of silicon-rich daily-use materials, namely charoite (silicate gemstone), Spanish dental crown, phone chip and Spanish glass has been investigated. All the samples previously characterised by means of X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy associated with energy-dispersion and wavelength-dispersive spectrometry and X-ray fluorescence exhibit a reasonable sensitivity to ionising radiation. The preliminary results, based on their TL properties, allow us to speculate that these materials could be potentially of interest in situations where conventional dosimetric systems are not available. The dose dependence of the 400 nm TL emission of the studied samples displays a very good linearity in the range of 0.1–10 Gy.