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Measurement of output factors for small photon beams
Author(s) -
Sauer Otto A,
Wilbert Jürgen
Publication year - 2007
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 - 10.1118/1.2734383
Subject(s) - detector , monte carlo method , physics , optics , field (mathematics) , shielded cable , photon , field size , energy (signal processing) , computational physics , diode , function (biology) , mathematics , computer science , statistics , optoelectronics , telecommunications , beam (structure) , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics , evolutionary biology , biology
A variety of detectors and procedures for the measurement of small field output factors are discussed in the current literature. Different detectors with or without corrections are recommended. Correction factors are often derived by Monte Carlo methods, where the bias due to approximations in the model is difficult to judge. Over that, results appear to be contradictory in some cases. In this work, output factors were measured for field sizes from 4 mm up to 180 mm side length with different detectors. A simple linear correction for the energy response of solid state detectors is proposed. This led to identical values down to 8 mm field size, as long as the size of the detector is small against the field size. The correction was of the order of a few percent. For a shielded silicon diode it was well below 1%. A physically meaningful function is proposed in order to calculate output factors for arbitrary field sizes with high accuracy.