Abstract
Polymer gels and films, due to their near equivalence to biological tissue, are amongst the most promising future dosimetry tools for medical applications. The application of polymer dose gels is limited by the sensitivity of dose readout methods and dose gel properties. It is a challenge to find suitable dosimeters for registration of doses delivered to the target by orthovoltage therapy units. The application of metal-particle-enriched polymer composites for dose registration in X-ray therapy might be an elegant solution, especially if recent dose-reading technologies exploring advantages of different physical phenomena are involved. In this work, X-rays from the orthovoltage therapy range were used for the irradiation of experimental samples. In addition, radiation-induced processes of formation of silver nanoparticles in AgNO3–PVA gels and in free standing AgNO3PVA films, also containing some additional solvents, namely glycerol, ethanol, and isopropanol, have been investigated, with the aim to apply the developed composites for medical dosimetry purposes. A simple and environmentally friendly method for the formation of free-standing AgPVA films at room temperature was proposed and realized for preparing AgPVA films for investigation. Radiation-induced synthesis of silver nanoparticles in AgPVA composites was investigated, analyzing LPSR-based UV-VIS spectral changes to the irradiated films with respect to irradiation doses, and dose-related tendencies were also evaluated. It was shown that AgPVA films were more sensitive for detection of doses from the interval 0–1.0 Gy, thus indicating potential application of AgPVA films for dosimetry purposes.
Highlights
Assessment and control of irradiation doses to patients during radiotherapy treatment or radiological examination is a top priority in the medical radiation field
The appearance of the characteristic absorbance band in the visible region (450–500 nm) was attributed to the local surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) phenomena caused by the presence of silver nanoparticles in investigated samples, indirectly confirming the synthesis of silver nanoparticles in X-ray-irradiated samples
This study investigated X-ray radiation-induced formation of Ag2+ + ea−q/PVA. → (Ag) particles and changes in related optical properties of AgNO3—polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) gels and AgNO3—PVA gels with glycerol, ethanol, and isopropanol additives
Summary
Assessment and control of irradiation doses to patients during radiotherapy treatment or radiological examination is a top priority in the medical radiation field. Registration and monitoring of the occupational exposure to the staff dealing with ionizing radiation is another important issue Due to this dosimetry and related materials, instruments and methods have become a prominent research field in physics and chemistry as it involves different radiation-induced processes and phenomena in irradiated materials: thermoluminescence (TLD) [1,2,3], optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) [3,4,5,6], electron spin resonance (ESR) [7,8], radioluminescence (RL) [9], and others. Having large active surface and relatively high photon-absorption ability (of metals), these particles may absorb a large amount of energy (which is related to absorbed dose) at the lower irradiation level as compared to the bulk material of a radiation detector. The specific interest in metal nanoparticles is caused by their optical properties, which strongly depend on the particle size, shape, and surrounding media
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