The Radiation Safety Technical Services Laboratory provides radiation monitoring and protection services for IAEA staff members, consultants, experts, fellows, interns, and training course participants who may become exposed to ionizing radiation as part of their involvement in IAEA activities around the world, as well as for preparedness and response to radiation incidents and emergencies.
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Radiation Safety Technical Services
The laboratory offers individual and workplace monitoring as well as radiation protection training and consultations. Escorted visitors who access controlled areas at the IAEA Seibersdorf laboratories are also provided with dosimeters for radiation monitoring . Each year the laboratory performs over 75 000 measurements, monitors 3000 workers and loans over 500 radiation survey instruments.
Individual monitoring is carried out to ascertain radiation doses received by workers exposed to external and internal sources of radiation. Such monitoring is needed to ensure that activities are conducted safely and that exposure levels stay below regulatory limits. This includes routine measurements of workers before and after review missions to IAEA Member States, confirming the effectiveness of the radiation protection programme, and the analysis of body excreta samples after suspected internal deposition of radionuclides in the human body.
Workplace monitoring is carried out to ensure that radiation levels in the Agency’s workplaces remain within safe levels and to support the planning and execution of work with radiation.
Services provided
The following services are provided by Radiation Safety Technical Services Laboratory for internal use within the Agency:
- Individual monitoring
- Whole-body luminescence dosimetry
- Extremity luminescence dosimetry
- Active personal dosimetry
- Body activity measurements
- Radiobioassay analysis of body excreta
- Internal dose assessment
- Workplace monitoring
- Dose rate measurement for photon emitters
- Surface contamination measurement
- Leakage test of sealed sources
- Gamma spectrometry measurements of waste
- Measurement of airborne radioactivity
- Dose rate measurements for neutron emitters*
- Calibration of radiation monitoring equipment*
- Loan of radiation monitoring instruments*
- Radiation protection and safety training*
- Respirator fit testing*
The laboratory was repeatedly recognized by the Association for the Promotion of Quality Control in Radiotoxicological Analysis (PROCORAD) as the best-performing laboratory in annual inter-laboratory comparisons on in-vitro radiobioassay among over 70 participating laboratories.
The laboratory’s policies and objectives are aligned with the Agency’s radiation protection requirements provided in IAEA Basic Safety Standards in Leadership and Management for Safety (GSR Part 2) and in Radiation Protection and Safety of Radiation Sources (GSR Part 3). It has an established quality management system based on record keeping, interlaboratory comparisons and an accreditation programme. Find out more about how the laboratory assures quality here.
*Services offered outside the scope of accreditation.
An IAEA radiation monitoring technician performs a contamination survey on a rubber glove of a glove box using a portable surface contamination meter in the IAEA Nuclear Material Laboratory. (Photo: D. Calma/IAEA)
An IAEA individual monitoring technician configures electronic personal dosimeters worn by workers that are monitored for exposure to radiation during IAEA activities. (Photo: D. Calma/IAEA)