A radiation protection glossary for Radiation Protection Supervisors (RPS), Radiation Protection Advisers (RPA) and anyone else interesting in radiation safety terms and definitions. The glossary is a mixture of health physics , phrases related to radiation protection legislation, transport, practical safety, technical terms and similar.
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Published: Oct 12, 2018
LET is short for Linear Energy Transfer. This quantity actually reflects the linear rate of energy absorption, by the absorbing medium, as the Ionisation event traverses the medium. In simple terms low LET radiation (e.g. Beta Particles) transfer less energy per unit path length than high LET radiation (e.g. Alpha Particles) to absorbing mediums. LET has most use in radiobiology and has the units of KeV/micron.
Radiation is one of the important factors in evolution. It causes mutation, and some level of mutation is actually good for evolution