Evidence for using Monte Carlo calculated wall attenuation and scatter correction factors for three styles of graphite-walled ion chamber

Abstract

The basic equation for establishing a 60Co air-kerma standard based on a cavity ionization chamber includes a wall correction term that corrects for the attenuation and scatter of photons in the chamber wall. For over a decade, the validity of the wall correction terms determined by extrapolation methods (KwKcep) has been strongly challenged by Monte Carlo (MC) calculation methods (Kwall). Using the linear extrapolation method with experimental data, KwKcep was determined in this study for three different styles of primary-standard-grade graphite ionization chamber: cylindrical, spherical and plane-parallel. For measurements taken with the same 60Co source, the air-kerma rates for these three chambers, determined using extrapolated KwKcep values, differed by up to 2%. The MC code ‘EGSnrc’ was used to calculate the values of Kwall for these three chambers. Use of the calculated Kwall values gave air-kerma rates that agreed within 0.3%. The accuracy of this code was affirmed by its reliability in modelling the complex structure of the response curve obtained by rotation of the non-rotationally symmetric plane-parallel chamber. These results demonstrate that the linear extrapolation technique leads to errors in the determination of air-kerma.