INDIVIDUAL MONITORING IN HIGH-ENERGY RADIATION-FIELDS

Suitable isotopic neutron sources do not exist for the calibration of personal dosemeters to be worn in the stray fields of high energy accelerators or the cosmic ray field at aircraft altitudes. In addition, existing personal neutron dosemeters cover only a limited energy range and their response varies widely to particles of different energies. Other available dosimetry systems suffer from similar inconveniencies. Thus, at CERN, as at certain other accelerator laboratories, the philosophy of calibrating personal dosemeters in the field against standard instruments has been developed. These are calibrated in terms of ambient dose equivalent which means that the personal dosemeters are essentially calibrated in terms of the same quantity. This has advantages when comparing the results of films actually carried by personnel with the results of measurements made by field instrumentation.