Statistical methods for determining components non-liniarities, from thermoluminescent devices

Thermoluminescent (TLD) dosimeters enjoy wide usage due to low cost and simplicity of use. They have however large errors at high doses in mixed-radiation fields, where non-linear effects occur. Algorithms based on the Akaike criterion [1] are presented for determining the maximal (physically meaningful) polynomial order with which the non-linearities are modeled. This depends on the number of points existing on a curve and on the points' errors.