Development of a novel approach to direct measurement of effective dose in neutron and gamma fields.

The aim of this PhD project is to develop a novel dosemeter that is sensitive to the energy and the direction of gammas and neutrons, allowing it to provide for the first time a direct estimate of the effective dose (the quantity in which dose limits are actually expressed). By combining the detector technology with modern machine learning techniques for analysing the signals, such a device could become a new reference instrument for neutron and gamma dosimetry.
The project is based on a new detector technology developed at Imperial College London. The detector comprises a 3D array of scintillator cells providing high sensitivity to the direction and energy of the gamma and neutron radiation fields.
The timeliness of the project matches well the upcoming changes to regulation (ICRP report currently under review) that is likely to demand that all instruments measure dosimetric quantities like the effective dose directly, something that most instruments in the field are not capable of providing at this time. This change from dose equivalent quantities to effective dose is likely to push manufacturers to review the performance of current systems and move to systems able to accomplish this task.