Studies on mass energy-absorption coefficients and effective atomic energy-absorption cross sections for carbohydrates

•Compute the values of mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ) of some carbohydrates.•The values of (μen/ρ) i.e. mass energy-absorption coefficient are calculated.•Effective atomic energy-absorption cross sections (σa,en).•Comparison of all (μ/ρ), (μen/ρ), (σa,en) values with XCOM program.•The measured data for carbohydrates are useful in radiation dosimetry and other fields.

We measured here the mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ) of carbohydrates, Esculine (C15H16O9), Sucrose (C12H22O11), Sorbitol (C6H14O6), d-Galactose (C6H12O6), Inositol (C6H12O6), d-Xylose (C5H10O5) covering the energy range from 122 keV up to 1330 keV photon energies by using gamma ray transmission method in a narrow beam good geometry set-up. The gamma-rays were detected using NaI(Tl) scintillation detection system with a resolution of 8.2% at 662 keV. The attenuation coefficient data were then used to obtain the total attenuation cross-section (σtot), molar extinction coefficients (ε), mass-energy absorption coefficients (μen/ρ) and effective (average) atomic energy-absorption cross section (σa,en) of the compounds. These values are found to be in good agreement with the theoretical values calculated based on XCOM data.