Retention of Pb isotopes in glass surfaces for retrospective assessment of radon exposure

✍ Scribed by Jörgen Ekman; Johan Helgesson; Lennart B. Karlsson; Masoud Mohsenpour; Iiro Riihimäki; Vladimir Touboltsev; Pasi Jalkanen; Ari Virtanen; Heikki Kettunen; Jussi Huikari; Arto Nieminen; Iain Moore; Heikki Penttilä; Kai Arstila; Juha Äystö; Jyrki Räisänen; Harry J. Whitlow

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 133 KB
• Volume: 249
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-583X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2006.03.049

✦ Synopsis

In recent years there has been increasing interest in radio-epidemiological techniques to retrospectively measure the radon dose exposure by determining the activity of 210 Pb, the longest-lived 222 Rn progeny, in glass surface layers. In this study the diffusion of 39 keV 209 Pb + ions implanted into glass using the IGISOL facility has been studied under conditions that mimic the recoil implantation of 210 Pb from 222 Rn. The resulting depth distributions of 209 Pb were then measured after heat treatment in vacuum at different temperatures by a sputter erosion technique. The diffusion coefficient could be described by an Arrhenius equation D = D 0 exp(ÀH/kT) where D 0 ¼ 0:30 þ1:14 À0:24 m 2 s À1 and H = 2.81 ± 0.11 eV. No statistically significant loss of 209 Pb from the sample was observed for annealing between 470 and 600 °C.