The relaxation losses and the corresponding velocity variations, observed at ultrasonic frequencies in
(M2O)0.14(B2O3)0.86 alkali borate
glasses (M = Li, K, Cs) between 1.5 and 300 K, have been modelled by an asymmetric
double-well potential model having a distribution of both the barrier
potential and the asymmetry. It is shown that the relaxation strength
C* and the spectral
density of asymmetries f0
decreases markedly with decreasing cation size. Below 10 K the sound attenuation is regulated
by the phonon-assisted relaxation of tunnelling systems and exhibits a tunnelling strength
C, ranging
between 10−4
and 10−3. At variance with the behaviour observed for
C*,
C
slightly increases with decreasing cation size and is more than one order of magnitude smaller than
C*. It is concluded that, differently from classical relaxing states, tunnelling systems are
independent of bond strengths and of structural changes characterizing a glassy network,
confirming their inherent universality. Above about 120 K the ultrasonic velocity is mainly
regulated by vibrational anharmonicity and shows a nearly linear decrease as the
temperature is increased, the slope scaling with the cation size. Taken together, the
observations point to the existence of a distinct correlation between anharmonicity and
local mobility in the glassy network.
In this study we analyzed the ESR signal of alanine dosimeters with gadolinium exposed to 6 MV linear accelerator photons. We observed that the addition of gadolinium brings about an improvement in the sensitivity to photons because of its high atomic number. The experimental data indicated that the addition of gadolinium increases the sensitivity of the alanine to 6 MV photons. This enhancement was better observed at high gadolinium concentrations for which the tissue equivalence is heavily reduced. However, information about the irradiation setup and of the radiation beam features allows one to correct for this difference. Monte Carlo simulations were carried out to obtain information on the expected effect of the addition of gadolinium on the dose absorbed by the alanine molecules inside the pellets. These results are compared with the experimental values, and the agreement is discussed.
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