3.3.3. Annealing Procedures

Annealing treatment is a method used to eliminate the residual signal of radiations, which may cause unwanted background readings; this process is essential to yielding a precise TLD outcome [74] The annealing procedure in the current study was carried out using different temperature values (100–400 ◦C) at a specific annealing time (1 h). In this investigation, each data value indicated an average of three dosimeter samples. Following that, the samples were exposed to 3 Gy of X-ray radiation.

Figure 11 displays the best TL response with a minimum standard deviation of the Agdoped ZnO (0.5 mol%) at 400 ◦C. The samples were subjected to an annealing temperature at 400 ◦C with different annealing times (from 20 to 60 min), before being exposed to 3 Gy of X-ray radiation. As shown in Figure 12, the optimum TL response and low standard deviation were found at 30 min. These annealing processes demonstrated that all

traps had been evacuated and restored the thermodynamic defect equilibrium before the irradiation [75]

**Figure 11.** The TL response of Ag-doped ZnO thin films with different annealing temperatures.

**Figure 12.** The TL response of Ag-doped ZnO thin films with different annealing times.
