Monte Carlo modeling of a high-sensitivity MOSFET dosimeter for low- and medium-energy photon sources

Metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) dosimeters are increasingly utilized in radiation therapy and diagnostic radiology. While it is difficult to characterize the dosimeter responses for monoenergetic sources by experiments, this paper reports a detailed Monte Carlo simulation model of the High-Sensitivity MOSFET dosimeter using Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) 4C. A dose estimator method was used to calculate the dose in the extremely thin sensitive volume. Efforts were made to validate the MCNP model using three experiments: (1) comparison of the simulated dose with the measurement of a Cs-137 source, (2) comparison of the simulated dose with analytical values, and (3) comparison of the simulated energy dependence with theoretical values. Our simulation results show that the MOSFET dosimeter has a maximum response at about 40 keV of photon energy. The energy dependence curve is also found to agree with the predicted value from theory within statistical uncertainties. The angular dependence study shows that the MOSFET dosimeter has a higher response (about 8%) when photons come from the epoxy side, compared with the kapton side for the Cs-137 source.