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Monte Carlo calculations of the absorbed dose and energy dependence of plastic scintillators
Author(s) -
Beddar A. Sam,
Briere Tina Marie,
Mourtada Firas A.,
Vassiliev Oleg N.,
Liu H. Helen,
Mohan Radhe
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.1897465
Subject(s) - scintillator , monte carlo method , scintillation , detector , absorbed dose , dosimetry , range (aeronautics) , optics , physics , materials science , computational physics , nuclear medicine , radiation , medicine , statistics , mathematics , composite material
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.