THE PREDOSE TECHNIQUE

The pre-dose technique has found applications in dating and authentication, accident dosimetry and heat treatment studies. It is a technique requiring considerable experimental effort to yield dose estimates, primarily due to the complexity of the pre-dose effect on which it is based. Nonetheless it has important potential in the dating of ceramics of the last two millennia, in accident dosimetry and in the study of the role of defects in thermoluminescence processes. This paper examines recent uses of the technique including current research problems and wider implications of the results of pre-dose studies, in particular the study of the effect in minerals other than quartz. Several questions raised in recent papers on the basis of measurements with synthetic and natural alpha quartz and related to assumptions made in the use of the technique for dose evaluations are also discussed.