A study of the thermoluminescent properties of CVD diamond detectors

Abstract

A batch of 20 diamond detectors obtained by the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method at the Institute for Materials Research at the Limburg University, Belgium, was investigated with respect to their thermoluminescent (TL) properties. The investigated detectors demonstrate TL sensitivity similar to that of the standard LiF:Mg, Ti (MTS) thermoluminescent detectors, lack of fading after two weeks from irradiation and apparent linearity of dose response. In spite of the persistent fluctuation of individual detector sensitivity observed in this batch, a new annealing procedure improved the stability of the TL signal. It has been concluded that 1 h annealing at 350 degreesC assures the highest reproducibility for this set of detectors. A 30% discrepancy of the value of the TL signal between individual detectors from the batch may be caused by non-uniform distribution of dopants in the volume of the CVD diamond. A prototype of a planar TL reader equipped with a CCD camera was employed in this investigation.