ABSTRACT

Thermoluminescence dosimetry (TLD) has been an important dosimetric technique in the development of radiotherapy. It relies on the ability of certain crystals to “store” a fraction of the energy imparted by ionizing radiation and release it after heating. There is a vast variety of TLD materials with many of them close to tissue equivalence for photon irradiation. As TLD is a solid state dosimetric technique TLD dosimeters are typically small and many of them exhibit high radiation sensitivity. This has led to applications ranging from radiation safety to in vivo dosimetry, end-to-end testing and auditing. Being a passive dosimeter that does not require cables or power supplies is a distinct advantage of TLD, while the labor intensiveness and the need for meticulous work and quality control lead practitioners to look for other options such as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and diamonds.