Analysis of Secondary Photons Emergent from Combined Material Slab as a Function of Slab Thickness

Abstract

Material science is very important for developing the linear accelerator. Determination and understanding of material behavior face to X-rays is a basic study for photon beam modifiers improvements. In this study, the 6 MV photon beams produced by Varian Clinac 2100 was modelled by Monte Carlo simulation using BEAMnrc code and thereafter the flattening filter was replaced by a slab of aluminum and copper separately and by slab of both materials combined together with different thickness of 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10 mm.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the scattered photons with thickness of combined material slab as a function of off-axis distance. The scattered photons increased with thickness of copper alone slab, combined aluminum-copper slab and copper-aluminum slab, but for aluminum alone slab they decreased with slab thickness. The stacking order of these two materials affects the characterization of scattered photons emergent from material slab with thickness. The combination of materials and the manner that the stacking was done affects the scattered photons production. The material combination could improve the radiotherapy efficiency in beam modifier development using more than two materials.