DEVELOPMENT OF AN IONIZATION CHAMBER FOR LOW AND MEDIUM ENERGY PHOTON DOSIMETRY

Measurement of dose due to low and medium energy X-ray using an ionization chamber needs special considerations as the wall thickness of the detector plays an important role in signal generation. A thin and plane wall ionization chamber having 900 cc volume was developed to study its calibration coefficient with air kerma (Kair) rate and ambient dose equivalent (H*(10)) rate at various X-ray beam qualities generated from a dosimetry grade X-ray machine. Optimized ionization chamber wall thickness was determined through measurements where a flat energy response of the ionization chamber could be established. The measurement shows that the air kerma rate based calibration coefficient for ionization chamber varies up to 45% and ambient dose equivalent rate based calibration coefficient varies up to 20% for wall thickness 1.2-1200 mg/cm2 in the energy range 17.6-213 keV.