A review of the 40-year history of the NSREC'S dosimetry and facilities session (1963-2003)

Year after year the Dosimetry and Facilities Session has been a fixture in the Nuclear Space and Radiation Conference (NSREC). As well as being home to subjects absolutely fundamental to dosimetry such as radiation transport, energy deposition, and X-ray photoemission, this session often included newly introduced topics such as hardness assurance and experimental techniques. This review paper describes the 40-year history of this session, whose title changed constantly over the years to reflect new developments. We have attempted to follow the logical chronological development and simultaneously give the reader a pedagogical tour through the main technical areas. Because of the wide variety of subjects in this session, this review covers first the context and background, and then four major subcategories as follows: the development of dosimetry devices and techniques; the basic physics of dosimetry and electron-photon/material interactions; neutron dosimetry and reactor facilities; and bremsstrahlung sources and other radiation facilities.