Effect of scatter material on diode detector performance for<i>in vivo</i>dosimetry

Best, Stephen P.; Ralston, Anna; McKenzie, David R.; Suchowerska, Natalka

doi:10.1088/0031-9155/53/1/006

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…This results in a slower decrease of the electron fluence compared with a water equivalent detector as the field size decreases below the threshold for lateral electron equilibrium (Westermark et al 2000) and a subsequent over-response of the diode in small fields (Haryanto et al 2002, Heydarian et al 1996. There will be a similar effect due to the density of the diode housing also being greater than that for water (Best et al 2008), the most common housing material being epoxy (ρ epoxy = 1.2 g cm −3 ). A further small contribution to the over-response of the diode may arise from the increase in electron stopping power of silicon relative to water with increasing electron energy (Heydarian et al 1996).…”

Section: Response Of Diodes At Small Field Sizesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small field diode correction factors derived using an air core fibre optic scintillation dosimeter and EBT2 film

Ralston¹,

Liu²,

Warrener³

et al. 2012

Phys. Med. Biol.

105

110

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There is no commercially available real-time dosimeter that can accurately measure output factors for field sizes down to 4 mm without the use of correction factors. Silicon diode detectors are commonly used but are not dosimetrically water equivalent, resulting in energy dependence and fluence perturbation. In contrast, plastic scintillators are nearly dosimetrically water equivalent. A fibre optic dosimeter (FOD) with a 0.8 mm(3) plastic scintillator coupled to an air core light guide was used to measure the output factors for Novalis/BrainLab stereotactic cones of diameter 4-30 mm and Novalis MLC fields of width 5-100 mm. The FOD data matched the output factors measured by a 0.125 cm(3) Semiflex ion chamber for the MLC fields above 30 mm and those measured with the EBT2 radiochromic film for the cones and MLC fields below 30 mm. Relative detector readings were obtained with four diode types (IBA SFD, EFD, PFD, PTW 60012) for the same fields. Empirical diode correction factors were determined by taking the ratio of FOD output factors to diode relative detector readings. The diodes were found to over-respond by 3%-16% for the smallest field. There was good agreement between different diodes of the same model number.

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