Playing Hard with Si: Challenges and Opportunities for New Materials in Radiation Therapy Dosimetry

The sophistication and diversity of radiation medicine modalities continue to increase significantly in both cancer imaging and cancer radiation therapy. With over 50% of cancer patients receiving some form of radiation procedure as part of their cancer management plan, the importance and impact of quantitative radiation detector systems for quality assurance in radiation medicine should not be underestimated. There are numerous challenges faced by silicon-based detector systems used for dosimetry in radiation therapy that are discussed in this review article, especially considering emerging radiation therapy modalities that incorporate ultra-high irradiation dose-rates (e.g., MRT, FLASH-RT, VHEE-RT), while others utilize mixed radiation fields (e.g., proton-RT, heavy ion therapy) or diffusion-based dose delivery techniques (e.g., Alpha DaRT). Such challenges create exciting opportunities for new radiation detector materials. This concise review paper explores the role of silicon in radiation detection applications and highlights the challenges it faces in achieving optimal performance. Additionally, this review discusses new materials that are emerging as strong candidates for the next generation of radiation detectors, emphasizing both the opportunities and challenges associated with these materials.