Development of a dose-rate dosimeter using a silicon photodiode for a medical linear accelerator in a 10 MV flattening filter-free mode

Abstract

This study was aimed at developing a dose-rate dosimeter to measure the instantaneous dose rate of a commercially available medical linear accelerator. A dose-rate dosimeter composed of a silicon photodiode (Si-PD), a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor single operational amplifier, a resistor of 20 MΩ, a capacitor of 100 pF, and a mini-substrate measuring 16 × 16 mm2 was evaluated. Voltage outputs from the proposed dosimeter were measured using an analog-to-digital converter on a microcomputer. A custom-made x-ray tube generator at an energy of 120 kV with a tube current ranging from 0.1 to 2.0 mA was used for the dose-rate calibration. Dose-rate calibration was performed 83.3 mm from an x-ray source using a commercially available semiconductor dosimeter. The developed Si-PD dosimeter could measure up to 0.6 Gy/s at a distance of 19.3 mm from the x-ray source. Measurements were also performed using a medical linear accelerator in a 10 MV flattening filter-free mode at depths of 0, 25, 50, and 100 mm with an irradiation field of 100 × 100 mm2 at a constant distance of 1000 mm from the source to the dosimeter. A peak voltage variation corresponding to the instantaneous dose rate was observed using a sampling period of 1.0 ms, and the peak voltages decreased with the depth. The detected pulse numbers were 512, 484, 491, and 511 at depths of 0, 25, 50, and 100 mm, respectively.