EPR dosimetry of yttria micro rods.

The use of rare earths (RE) as dopant of materials has led the development of advanced materials for many applications such as optical tracers, special alloys, semiconductors, as well as radiation dosimeters. The development of new dosimetric materials based on REs is a great challenge in innovation of materials. Yttria (Y 2 O 3 ) presents luminescent proprieties and is a promising material for radiation dosimetry. The present paper aims to evaluate paramagnetic defects of Y 2 O 3 rods obtained via bio-prototyping by using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) technique at room temperature. Ceramic rods were irradiated with gamma doses from 0.001 to 150 kGy and evaluated by EPR at room temperature with X-band EPR. According to EPR results, as sintered samples exhibited an EPR signal with principal g tensor of 2.020 and maximum line width around 2.3 mT, which is ascribed to interstitial oxygen ion. Dose response behaviour exhibited two distinct dose ranges, one is from 1 to 100Gy and the second is from 0.1 to 70 kGy. Thermal annealing approaches reveal that defect centres of yttria decay significantly at high temperature. These innovative results make Y 2 O 3 a promising material for radiation dosimetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]