A prototype of an ionization chamber for gamma radiation beams of 60Co: Experimental and Monte Carlo preliminary results

Ionization chambers are the most widely used instruments for dosimetry in radiotherapy. With the aim to test new configurations and materials using low-cost and easily-available components, verify the possibility of its application in the gamma radiation field of 60Co and fulfill the need of a chamber for scientific metrological purposes, in this paper the prototype of a plane-parallel ionization chamber has been designed and built, and its performance has been studied at the SSDL of KARAJ. The front wall and back wall of the chamber were made of graphite and Plexiglas respectively, as opposed to the one type of material in commercially available chambers. The collecting electrode has a diameter of 20 mm. The sensitive volume is 0.63 cm3. It was found that the Leakage current, the short-term stability and the polarity effect were within the international recommendations. The results were compared with those of a reference cylindrical chamber. The maximum difference observed in this comparison was 1.1%. The relative uncertainty was below 0.2%. Moreover, Monte Carlo simulation was undertaken using MCNP4C code and the relative difference of 1.9% was observed compared to the experiment. As a result the chamber presented a satisfactory performance in all evaluated tests in Gamma radiation field of 60Co.