Semi-automatic evaluation system for nuclear track detectors applied to radon measurements

Abstract A global semi-automatic evaluation system has been set up in our laboratory to scan and count etched tracks in both Makrofol-DE and LR-115 detectors. This methodology is, in principle, fully adaptable to any chemical and electrochemical etched track detector. The main advantage it offers is a considerable reduction of the counting time in comparison with the traditional methods using optical devices — microscope or microfiche reader depending on the track size — and a wide detectable range. In addition, it yields accurate, reliable and quite reproducible results. It has been used to measure the track density in both Makrofol-DE and LR-115 based radon and radon daughter detectors. A detailed description of this method is presented in this paper. Results from a comparison study between this system and ocular counting and from experimental calibration are presented as well. The correspondence between the results of the semi-automatic system and those obtained directly with ocular counting has been found to be rather good.