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Investigation of a pulsed current annealing method in reusing MOSFET dosimeters for in vivo IMRT dosimetry
Author(s) -
Luo GuangWen,
Qi ZhenYu,
Deng XiaoWu,
Rosenfeld Anatoly
Publication year - 2014
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 - 10.1118/1.4871619
Subject(s) - dosimeter , dosimetry , materials science , mosfet , annealing (glass) , threshold voltage , irradiation , linearity , optoelectronics , transistor , nuclear medicine , voltage , electronic engineering , medicine , electrical engineering , physics , nuclear physics , engineering , composite material
Purpose: To explore the feasibility of pulsed current annealing in reusing metal oxide semiconductor field‐effect transistor (MOSFET) dosimeters for in vivo intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) dosimetry.Methods: Several MOSFETs were irradiated at d max using a 6 MV x‐ray beam with 5 V on the gate and annealed with zero bias at room temperature. The percentage recovery of threshold voltage shift during multiple irradiation‐annealing cycles was evaluated. Key dosimetry characteristics of the annealed MOSFET such as the dosimeterˈs sensitivity, reproducibility, dose linearity, and linearity of response within the dynamic range were investigated. The initial results of using the annealed MOSFETs for IMRT dosimetry practice were also presented.Results: More than 95% of threshold voltage shift can be recovered after 24‐pulse current continuous annealing in 16 min. The mean sensitivity degradation was found to be 1.28%, ranging from 1.17% to 1.52%, during multiple annealing procedures. Other important characteristics of the annealed MOSFET remained nearly consistent before and after annealing. Our results showed there was no statistically significant difference between the annealed MOSFETs and their control samples in absolute dose measurements for IMRT QA ( p = 0.99). The MOSFET measurements agreed with the ion chamber results on an average of 0.16% ± 0.64%.Conclusions: Pulsed current annealing provides a practical option for reusing MOSFETs to extend their operational lifetime. The current annealing circuit can be integrated into the reader, making the annealing procedure fully automatic.