Real-Time Temperature Correction of Medical Range Fiber Bragg Gratings Dosimeters

Abstract

The interest in fiber Bragg gratings dosimeters for radiotherapy dosimetry lies in their (i) submillimeter size, (ii) multi-points dose measurements, and (iii) customizable spatial resolution. However, since the radiation measurement relies on the thermal expansion of the surrounding polymer coating, such sensors are strongly temperature dependent, which needs to be accounted for; otherwise, the errors on measurements can be higher than the measurements themselves. In this paper, we test and compare four techniques for temperature compensation: two types of dual grating techniques using different coatings, a pre-irradiation and post-irradiation temperature drift technique, which is used for calorimetry, and finally, we developed a real-time interpolated temperature gradient for the multi-points dosimetry technique. We show that, over these four tested techniques, the last one outperforms the others and allows for real-time temperature correction when an array of 13 fiber Bragg gratings spatially extending over the irradiation zone is used. For a 20 Gy irradiation, this technique reduces the measurement errors from 200% to about 10%, making it suitable for a radiotherapy dose range. Temperature correction for medical low-dose range dosimetry is a first in our field and is essential for clinical FBG dosimetry applications.