Exploring stable thermoluminescence signal in natural Barite (BaSO 4 ) for retrospective dosimetry Suchinder K. Sharma a,n , Jugina Thomas b , M.S. Pandian b , P.S. Rao b,1 , R.K. Gartia c , Ashok K. Singhvi a a AMO-Physics Division, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad 380009, India b Pondicherry University, Puducherry 605 014, India c Manipur University, Imphal 795003, India HIGHLIGHTS  Glow peak at 608 K in Mn doped Barite.  Minimum detectable dose of 1.45 70.12 mGy with 35% fading in 30 days storage time.  Reproducible TL signal within 75%.  Suitable for retrospective dosimetry and geochronology of young deposits extending to 20 ka. article info Article history: Received 18 May 2015 Received in revised form 25 August 2015 Accepted 25 August 2015 Available online 28 August 2015 Keywords: Barite Dosimetry Thermoluminescence Trap depth Sensitivity Reproducibility Fading abstract We explore the possible use of Barite (BaSO 4 ) for radiation dosimetry and geochronology using ther- moluminescence technique. Natural Barite with Mn as an impurity has a glow peak at 608 K with a minimum detectable dose of 1.45 70.12 mGy. This peak shows 35% fading on 30 days of storage time and is photo-bleachable with excellent reproducibility on repeated read-out. The sensitivity changes with dose and evidence of athermal fading is also seen. We infer that the signal can be used for both retrospective dosimetry and geochronology of young deposits extending to 20 ka. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Use of natural Barite as a radiation dosimeter was examined in detail in view of its multifaceted use in X-ray storage properties, medical diagnostics, drilling activities (Shen et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2003) and due to its occurrence in geological strata that provides a new possibility for geochronology (Iwata et al., 1993; Shinsho et al., 2011; Ramaswamy et al., 2010; Bernstein and Byrne, 2004). Barite crystallizes in diverse depositional environments ranging from hydrothermal, evaporatic or biogenic. 2. Barite luminescence: present status Considerable studies have been carried out on Barite doped with either transition-metal or rare-earth ions. These include, measurement of spatial distribution of radiation dose around a target using BaSO 4 : Eu sheet (Ramaswamy et al., 2010) and en- vironmental dosimetry using samples from shielding blocks of Barite from CERN (Kiyak et al., 2010; Kitis et al., 2010). Other ap- plications are the use of BaSO 4 /Y 2 O 3 : Eu 3 þ core–shell micro- spheres for lighting and plasma display (Zhang et al., 2009) and the use of BaSO 4 : Eu nanoparticles (Salah et al., 2009), BaSO 4 : Cu (Manam and Das, 2009) and BaSO 4 : Mn (Manam and Das, 2010) for radiation dosimetry. Sato et al. (2011) explored Barite for lu- minescence–ESR dating for detection of cosmic ray exposure and estimated the thermal stabilities and decay kinetics of SO 3 − center. Manam and Das (2010) examined the trapping dynamics in Mn Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apradiso Applied Radiation and Isotopes http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2015.08.035 0969-8043/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. n Corresponding author. Fax: þ91 79 26314300. E-mail address: suchindersharma@gmail.com (S.K. Sharma). 1 Prof. P.S. Rao died during the course of the present work and we dedicate this work to him. Applied Radiation and Isotopes 105 (2015) 198–203