Pulsed EPR analysis of tooth enamel samples exposed to UV and gamma-radiations

The electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is widely applied for retrospective dosimetric purposes by means of quantitative detection of radicals in tooth enamel and bone samples. In this work we report a study by cw and pulsed EPR on two samples of human tooth enamel respectively irradiated by UV (254 nm) and gamma-exposed. The continuous wave (cw) EPR spectra have shown the usual presence in both samples of two types of CO_(2)^(-) radicals, with axial and orthorombic g tensors. We have obtained the electron spin echo detected EPR (ED-EPR) spectra at 80 K of the two samples, and we have shown that they are suitable to mark the difference between the effects produced by the different irradiations. At low temperature the contribution to the ED-EPR spectrum of the mobile radical with the axial g tensor is still present in the UV irradiated sample, but not in the gamma-irradiated one, where its dynamics is too slow to average the g tensor. We have moreover studied the two-pulse electron spin echo decay on varying the microwave power, a well established method for measuring the Instantaneous Diffusion. We have found that the spectral diffusion parameter is almost the same for both radiation types, whereas the Instantaneous Diffusion is significantly larger for gamma-exposed samples than for UV irradiated ones. This difference is due to a higher local microscopic concentration of free radicals for samples irradiated with gamma photons.