Monte Carlo calculations of the absorbed dose and energy dependence of plastic scintillators
- Department of Radiation Physics, Division of Radiation Oncology, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030 (United States)
Detector systems using plastic scintillators can provide instantaneous measurements with high spatial resolution in many applications including small field and high dose gradient field applications. Energy independence and water equivalence are important dosimetric properties that determine whether a detector will be useful in a clinical setting. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we calculated the energy dependence of plastic scintillators when exposed to photon beams in the radiotherapeutic range. These calculations were performed for a detector comprised of a BC-400 plastic scintillator surrounded by a polystyrene wall. Our results showed the plastic scintillation detector to be nearly energy independent over a range of energies from 0.5 to 20 MeV. The ratio of the dose absorbed by the scintillator to that absorbed by water was nearly a constant, approximately equal to 0.98 over the entire energy range of interest. These results confirm the water equivalence of the plastic scintillation detector and are in very good agreement with earlier results obtained using Burlin cavity theory.
- OSTI ID:
- 20634681
- Journal Information:
- Medical Physics, Vol. 32, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1118/1.1897465; (c) 2005 American Association of Physicists in Medicine; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-2405
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DOSIMETRY
ENERGY DEPENDENCE
MONTE CARLO METHOD
PHOTON BEAMS
PLASTIC SCINTILLATION DETECTORS
PLASTIC SCINTILLATORS
POLYSTYRENE
RADIATION DOSES
RADIOTHERAPY
SCINTILLATIONS
SPATIAL RESOLUTION
WATER