Calibration of the borated ion chamber at NIST reactor thermal column

In boron neutron capture therapy and boron neutron capture enhanced fast neutron therapy, the absorbed dose of tissue due to the boron neutron capture reaction is difficult to measure directly. This dose can be computed from the measured thermal neutron fluence rate and the (10)B concentration at the site of interest. A borated tissue-equivalent (TE) ion chamber can be used to directly measure the boron dose in a phantom under irradiation by a neutron beam. Fermilab has two Exradin 0.5 cm(3) Spokas thimble TE ion chambers, one loaded with boron, available for such measurements. At the Fermilab Neutron Therapy Facility, these ion chambers are generally used with air as the filling gas. Since alpha particles and lithium ions from the (10)B(n,alpha)(7)Li reactions have very short ranges in air, the Bragg-Gray principle may not be satisfied for the borated TE ion chamber. A calibration method is described in this paper for the determination of boron capture dose using paired ion chambers. The two TE ion chambers were calibrated in the thermal column of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) research reactor. The borated TE ion chamber is loaded with 1,000 ppm of natural boron (184 ppm of (10)B). The NIST thermal column has a cadmium ratio of greater than 400 as determined by gold activation. The thermal neutron fluence rate during the calibration was determined using a NIST fission chamber to an accuracy of 5.1%. The chambers were calibrated at two different thermal neutron fluence rates: 5.11 x 10(6) and 4.46 x 10(7)n cm(-2) s(-1). The non-borated ion chamber reading was used to subtract collected charge not due to boron neutron capture reactions. An optically thick lithium slab was used to attenuate the thermal neutrons from the neutron beam port so the responses of the chambers could be corrected for fast neutrons and gamma rays in the beam. The calibration factor of the borated ion chamber was determined to be 1.83 x 10(9) +/- 5.5% (+/- 1sigma) n cm(-2) per nC at standard temperature and pressure condition.     

Recombination chambers filled with different gases--studies of possible application for BNCT beam dosimetry

Recombination microdosimetric method (RMM), based on the phenomenon of initial recombination of ions is applied to determine the distribution of the absorbed dose versus linear energy transfer (LET). Usually, the recombination chambers used for RMM are filled with tissue-equivalent gas, but the response of the device can be adjusted to the actual needs by the use of different gases. Using a graphite chamber filled with nitrogen and 10BF3 it was shown that RMM can also be used with chambers containing these gases. This opens the possibility of designing a recombination chamber for the determination of the dose fractions due to gamma radiation, fast neutrons, neutron capture on nitrogen and high-LET particles from the (n,10B) reaction in simulated tissue with different contents of 10B. It was also necessary to improve the method for the determination of initial recombination at low polarising voltages, when volume-recombination and back-diffusion of ions are considerably high.     

A prototype personal neutron dosemeter based on an ion chamber and direct ion storage

Ionisation chambers are sensitive to both neutrons and photons. In order to produce a neutron dosemeter based on an ion chamber a double-chamber system which allows for differential readings has to be built. The system consists of one chamber with high neutron sensitivity (e.g. A-150 or polyethylene with 10B or 6Li compounds) and one chamber with low neutron sensitivity (e.g. graphite or Teflon). Different combined dosemeter prototypes were produced and their responses for standard photon and neutron radiation fields, as well as various field spectra, were determined. The feasibility of neutron dosimetry with ion chambers and direct ion storage (DIS) electronics has been proved. The results obtained with prototype dosemeters indicate the system's promising potential for legal approval in the future. Apart from dosimetric properties, the advantages of the system are its small size and weight, easy readout and relatively low production cost.     

Method for determination of gamma and neutron dose components in mixed radiation fields using a high-pressure recombination chamber

A new method is proposed for the determination of dose components in mixed radiation fields (gamma + neutrons) using a recombination chamber. The method involves the determination of the ratio of ionisation currents measured at two different voltages applied to the chamber without the need of determining the saturation current, neither in the radiation field investigated nor during calibration. Therefore, the chamber can be filled with a gas under a pressure much higher than that used in presently available recombination chambers. This paper presents theoretically derived formulae supporting the method and the experimental results of dose component measurements using a high-pressure recombination chamber filled with methane. The method can be used for determining neutron and gamma dose components in the environment, especially in the vicinity of nuclear centres.     

A measuring system with a recombination chamber for neutron dosimetry around medical accelerators

A measuring system for dosimetry of neutrons generated around medical electron accelerators is proposed. The system consists of an in-phantom tissue-equivalent recombination chamber and associated electronics for automated control and data acquisition. A second ionization chamber serves as a monitor of photon radiation. Two quantities are determined by the recombination chamber--the total absorbed dose and the recombination index of radiation quality. The ambient dose equivalent, H*(10), or neutron absorbed dose in an appropriate phantom, can be then derived from the measured values. Tests of the system showed that a 0.5% dose contribution of neutrons to the absorbed dose of photons could be detected and estimated under laboratory conditions. Preliminary tests at the 15 MV Varian Clinac 2300C/D medical accelerator confirmed that the measuring system could be used under clinical conditions. The H*(10) of the mixed radiation was determined with an accuracy of approximately 10%.     

Frequency domain reflectometry of plasma chambers

Frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) is used to compare the electrical characteristics of five industrial plasma chambers, without the plasma present, used in the manufacture of semiconductors devices at Intel-Ireland. A scalar network analyzer (SNA), consisting of a tracking generator/spectrum analyzer and a radio frequency bridge was used to sweep the chambers from 1 MHz to 1 GHz. The non-invasive nature of the measurement interrogates the matching network, the wafer platen electrode fringing capacitance to ground, and radio frequency resistive loss. The resulting frequency response gives a unique fingerprint of the chamber, and is completely transferable between chambers for post-maintenance qualification and chamber comparison. The results from three electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) chambers are compared with the two single-frequency capacitively coupled plasma chambers and one dual-frequency inductively coupled plasma chamber. A comparative chamber survey of the three ECR chambers reveals a strong wafer electrode reflection in the 500 MHz frequency region. Whereas, for slab-like plasma chamber designs (such as the LRC Rainbow 4400 chamber) the wafer electrode response is at 14-15 MHz. It is found that the chamber design and individual components have a unique frequency response. A linear analogue circuit simulator was used to verify and characterize the measurements.     

Response of neutron detectors to high-energy mixed radiation fields

Radiation protection around CERN's high-energy accelerators represents a major challenge due to the presence of complex, mixed radiation fields. Behind thick shielding neutrons dominate and their energy ranges from fractions of eV to about 1 GeV. In this work the response of various portable detectors sensitive to neutrons was studied at CERN's High-Energy Reference Field Facility (CERF). The measurements were carried out with conventional rem counters, which usually cover neutron energies up to 20 MeV, the Thermo WENDI-2, which is specified to measure neutrons up to several GeV, and a tissue-equivalent proportional counter. The experimentally determined neutron dose equivalent results were compared with Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Based on these studies field calibration factors can be determined, which result in a more reliable estimate of H(*)(10) in an unknown, but presumably similar high-energy field around an accelerator than a calibration factor determined in a radiation field of a reference neutron source.     

A comparison of different recombination methods in mixed radiation fields at high energy accelerators

Recombination chambers and different recombination methods have been used for dosimetry of mixed radiation fields at high-energy accelerators for over 40 years. This paper gives a short overview of 11 selected recombination methods used for the determination of H*(10) in mixed radiation fields at high-energy accelerators. A new correction factor is proposed, mainly in order to take into account the dependence of the chamber sensitivity on radiation quality. This factor depends only on the measurable index of radiation quality and can be determined for a particular chamber during the calibration in a reference field of neutron radiation. A comparison of the results obtained at high-energy accelerators showed that all the methods gave the same values of H(10), within a specified accuracy of about 20%, so all of them are suitable for monitoring complex mixed radiation fields at workplaces.     

Dosimetric measurements with a brain equivalent plastic walled ionization chamber in an epithermal neutron beam

The tissue substitute A-181 plastic, which has an elemental composition matching both the constituent hydrogen and nitrogen of brain tissue, was assessed for dosimetry in boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). The sensitivity of an A-181 walled ionization chamber relative to photons for all neutrons in a clinical epithermal beam was calculated to vary between 0.79 +/- 0.04 in-air and 0.95 +/- 0.01 at depths of 4 cm and greater in-phantom. Differences in the total neutron doses measured with A-150 and A-181 plastic-walled chambers were attributed, within experimental error, to the dose produced by thermal neutron capture reactions from the different concentrations of nitrogen in the two tissue substitutes. The response of the A-181 chamber was converted to total neutron dose with an uncertainty increasing with depth in-phantom from 13 to 23% the magnitude of which is determined by the subtraction of a relatively large photon dose. The use of A-181 in place of A-150 plastic will no longer require partitioning the measured neutron dose by energy and should simplify dose reporting in BNCT.     

Characterisation of ionisation chambers for a mixed radiation field and investigation of their suitability as radiation monitors for the LHC

Monitoring of the radiation environment is one of the key tasks in operating a high-energy accelerator such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The radiation fields consist of neutrons, charged hadrons as well as photons and electrons with energy spectra extending from those of thermal neutrons up to several hundreds of GeV. The requirements for measuring the dose equivalent in such a field are different from standard uses and it is thus necessary to investigate the response of monitoring devices thoroughly before the implementation of a monitoring system can be conducted. For the LHC, it is currently foreseen to install argon- and hydrogen-filled high-pressure ionisation chambers as radiation monitors of mixed fields. So far their response to these fields was poorly understood and, therefore, further investigation was necessary to prove that they can serve their function well enough. In this study, ionisation chambers of type IG5 (Centronic Ltd) were characterised by simulating their response functions by means of detailed FLUKA calculations as well as by calibration measurements for photons and neutrons at fixed energies. The latter results were used to obtain a better understanding and validation of the FLUKA simulations. Tests were also conducted at the CERF facility at CERN in order to compare the results with simulations of the response in a mixed radiation field. It is demonstrated that these detectors can be characterised sufficiently enough to serve their function as radiation monitors for the LHC.     

Investigations of recombination chambers for BNCT beam dosimetry

A set of cylindrical recombination chambers, including a tissue-equivalent chamber and three graphite chambers filled with different gases-CO(2), N(2) and (10)BF(3), was designed for the dosimetry of therapeutic neutron radiation beams used for BNCT. The separation of the dose components is based on differences of the shape of the saturation curve depending on the LET spectrum of the investigated radiation. The measurements using all the chambers were performed in a reactor beam of NRI ReZ (Czech Republic) and in the reference radiation fields of a (252)Cf radiation source free in air or in filters.     

Characteristic evaluation of a Lithium-6 loaded neutron coincidence spectrometer

Characteristics of a (6)Li-loaded neutron coincidence spectrometer were investigated from both measurements and Monte Carlo simulations. The spectrometer consists of three (6)Li-glass scintillators embedded in a liquid organic scintillator BC-501A, which can detect selectively neutrons that deposit the total energy in the BC-501A using a coincidence signal generated from the capture event of thermalised neutrons in the (6)Li-glass scintillators. The relative efficiency and the energy response were measured using 4.7, 7.2 and 9.0 MeV monoenergetic neutrons. The measured ones were compared with the Monte Carlo calculations performed by combining the neutron transport code PHITS and the scintillator response calculation code SCINFUL. The experimental light output spectra were in good agreement with the calculated ones in shape. The energy dependence of the detection efficiency was reproduced by the calculation. The response matrices for 1-10 MeV neutrons were finally obtained.     

Validating a MCNPX model of Mg(Ar) and TE(TE) ionisation chambers exposed to 60CO gamma rays

For an accurate determination of the absorbed doses in complex radiation fields (e.g. mixed neutron-gamma fields), a better interpretation of the response of ionisation chambers is required. This study investigates a model of the ionisation chambers using a different approach, analysing the collected charge per minute as a response of the detector instead of the dose. The MCNPX Monte Carlo code is used. In this paper, the model is validated using a well-known irradiation field only: a (60)Co source. The detailed MCNPX models of a Mg(Ar) and TE(TE) ionisation chamber is investigated comparing the measured charge per minute obtained free-in-air and in a water phantom with the simulated results. The difference between the calculations and the measurements for the TE(TE) chamber is within +/-2% whereas for the Mg(Ar) chamber is around +7%. The systematic discrepancy in the case of Mg(Ar) chamber is expected to be caused by an overestimation of the sensitive volume.     

Measurements of the neutron dose near a 15 Mv medical linear accelerator

In this work, simplified recombination methods for routine estimation of dose equivalent in mixed (gamma and neutrons) radiation field outside the irradiation field of linear medical accelerators is considered. The author's earlier reported method of H(10) measurements, involving determination of the recombination index of radiation quality, Q(4) by tissue-equivalent recombination chamber was combined with the new method for determination of the photon to neutron dose ratio D(X)/D(n) from the ratio of ion collection efficiencies measured in the investigated radiation field and in two reference fields of gamma and neutron radiations. The method is suitable when the neutron contribution to the total absorbed dose, D(n)/D, is >3%.     

In-phantom spectra and dose distributions from a high-energy neutron therapy beam

In radiotherapy with external beams, healthy tissues surrounding the target volumes are inevitably irradiated. In the case of neutron therapy, the estimation of dose to the organs surrounding the target volume is particularly challenging, because of the varying contributions from primary and secondary neutrons and photons of different energies. The neutron doses to tissues surrounding the target volume at the Louvain-la-Neuve (LLN) facility were investigated in this work. At LLN, primary neutrons have a broad spectrum with a mean energy of about 30 MeV. The transport of a 10×10 cm² beam through a water phantom was simulated by means of the Monte Carlo code MCNPX. Distributions of energy-differential values of neutron fluence, kerma and kerma equivalent were estimated at different locations in a water phantom. The evolution of neutron dose and dose equivalent inside the phantom was deduced. Measurements of absorbed dose and of dose equivalent were then carried out in a water phantom using an ionization chamber and superheated drop detectors (SDDs). On the beam axis, the calculations agreed well with the ionization chamber data, but disagreed significantly from the SDD data due to the detector's under-response to neutrons above 20 MeV. Off the beam axis, the calculated absorbed doses were significantly lower than the ionization chamber readings, since gamma fields were not accounted for. The calculated data are doses from neutron-induced charge particles, and these agreed with the values measured by the photon-insensitive SDDs. When exposed to the degraded spectra off the beam axis, the SDD offered reliable estimates of the neutron dose equivalent.     

A tissue equivalent proportional counter filled with a mixture of tissue equivalent gas and 3He for neutron monitoring

Tissue equivalent proportional counters (TEPC) allow the measurement of the ambient dose equivalent H(*)(10) in mixed fields. IRSN has been studying the design and the response of a TEPC in terms of neutron H(*)(10). First, a cylindrical counter was filled with propane gas at a low pressure. H(*)(10) measured in monoenergetic neutron fields underestimated the reference (>50%) at low energies (< 500 keV). A small amount of (3)He was then added to the gas in order to increase the response. The underestimation observed decreased but the results (> 40%) were not totally complying with the objectives (< 20%). Finally the choice was made to improve the analysis of the microdosimetric spectra y.d(y) in order to identify the energy of the incident neutrons. The analysis allows a better estimate of H(*)(10). The aim of this article is to describe the TEPC and the effect of these methods of optimisation.     

Influence of environmental changes on continuous radon monitors. Results of a Spanish intercomparison exercise

The first Spanish intercomparison exercise for continuous radon monitors was carried out with the participation of nine monitoring systems from eight laboratories. The exposures were carried out in the radon and thoron chambers at the Institute of Energy Techniques (INTE) of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), which is considered to be the Spanish reference chamber. The monitors were exposed to three different temperatures (13, 20 and 30 degrees C), relative humidities (30, 45 and 80%) and radon concentrations (450, 2000 and 9000 Bq m(-3)). Exposures in the thoron chamber were carried out at concentrations of approximately 450 Bq m(-3). The response of the ionisation chambers and scintillation monitors was acceptable. However, the response of monitors based on electrostatic collection was found to be influenced by external climatic conditions. Moreover, all radon monitors were sensitive to thoron concentration, which was especially significant for scintillation monitors.     

Optimisation of a secondary standard chamber for the measurement of the ambient dose equivalent, H*(10), for low photon energies

A secondary standard ionisation chamber for photon radiation for measuring an ionisation current, which is directly proportional to the conventionally true value of the ambient dose equivalent, H*(10), was optimised. The chamber was developed in the Austrian Research Centers Seibersdorf and is used successfully worldwide by dosimetry laboratories. The chamber response with respect to H*(10) for photon energies from 40 to 1,250 keV is nearly constant. For lower photon energies the response is strongly energy-dependent and does not fulfil the requirements concerning the quality of a secondary standard given in ISO 4,037-2, i.e. for energies for which the determination of the conventionally true value of H*(10) is very difficult. Considering the dose limits defined in the Directive 96/29/Euratom, in the case of whole-body irradiation the knowledge of the personal dose equivalent is of importance down to energies of approximately 12 keV. For area dosimetry, this means that the knowledge of H*(10) for energies approximately >or=12 keV is necessary. To get one secondary standard chamber for H*(10) for the whole photon energy range and to close the gap for low energies in the dissemination of the conventionally true value of H*(10), the chamber was optimised for a flat response for energies from approximately 12 to 1,250 keV.     

Electrophoretic cell manipulation and electrochemical gene-function analysis based on a yeast two-hybrid system in a microfluidic device

A novel microfluidic device with an array of analytical chambers was developed in order to perform single-cell-based gene-function analysis. A series of analytical processes was carried out using the device, including electrophoretic manipulation of single cells and electrochemical measurement of gene function. A poly(dimethylsiloxane) microstructure with a microfluidic channel (150 microm in width, 10 microm in height) and an analytical chamber (100 x 20 x 10 microm (3)) were fabricated and aligned on a glass substrate with an array of Au microelectrodes. Two microelectrodes positioned in the analytical chamber were employed as a working electrode for the electrophoretic manipulation of cells and electrochemical measurements. A yeast strain ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae Y190) carrying the beta-galactosidase reporter gene was used to demonstrate that the device could detect the enzyme. Target cells flowing through the main channel were introduced into the chamber by electrophoresis using the ground electrode laid on the main channel. When the cell was treated with 17beta-estradiol, gene expression was triggered to produce beta-galactosidase, catalyzing the hydrolysis of p-aminophenyl-beta- D-galactopyranoside to form p-aminophenol (PAP). The enzymatically generated PAP was detected by cyclic voltammetry and amperometry at the single-cell level in the chamber of the device. Generator-collector mode amperometry was also applied to amplify the current response originating from gene expression in the trapped single cells. After electrochemical measurement, the trapped cells were easily released from the chamber using electrophoretic force.     

Numerical Modeling of the Thermal and Gasdynamic Structure of Plasma Flows in Electric-Arc Reactors with Three-Jet Mixing Chambers

On the basis of a three-dimensional mixing model of plasma jets, a numerical study is made of the gasdynamic and thermal structure of plasma flows in three-jet mixing chambers of several types and in cylindrical reactors with such chambers. It is shown that in cylindrical chambers (with a diameter of 5–10 cm) and in a conic chamber with an apex angle of 60° (with a base diameter of 10 cm) for diameters of plasmatron nozzles of 1–2 cm the mixing of plasma jets proceeds virtually completely in the chamber volume. Application of such chambers provides the formation of rather uniform (in cross sections) temperature fields in the channels of plasma reactors.