Monte Carlo calculation for microplanar beam radiography

In radiography the scattered radiation from the off-target region decreases the contrast of the target image. We propose that a bundle of collimated, closely spaced, microplanar beams can reduce the scattered radiation and eliminate the effect of secondary electron dose, thus increasing the image dose contrast in the detector. The lateral and depth dose distributions of 20-200 keV microplanar beams are investigated using the EGS4 Monte Carlo code to calculate the depth doses and dose profiles in a 6 cm x 6 cm x 6 cm tissue phantom. The maximum dose on the primary beam axis (peak) and the minimum inter-beam scattered dose (valley) are compared at different photon energies and the optimum energy range for microbeam radiography is found. Results show that a bundle of closely spaced microplanar beams can give superior contrast imaging to a single macrobeam of the same overall area.