The BNM-LNHB (formerly BNM-LPRI, the French national standard laboratory for ionizing radiation) is equipped with a SATURNE 43 linear accelerator (GE Medical Systems) dedicated to establishing national references of absorbed dose to water for high-energy photon and electron beams. These standards are derived from a dose measurement with a graphite calorimeter and a transfer procedure to water using Fricke dosimeters. This method has already been used to obtain the reference of absorbed dose to water for cobalt-60 beams. The correction factors rising from the perturbations generated by the dosimeters were determined by Monte Carlo calculations. To meet these applications, the Monte Carlo code PENELOPE was used and user codes were specially developed. The first step consisted of simulating the electron and photon showers produced by primary electrons within the accelerator head to determine the characteristics of the resulting photon beams and absorbed dose distributions in a water phantom. These preliminary computations were described in a previous paper. The second step, described in this paper, deals with the calculation of the perturbation correction factors of the graphite calorimeter and of Fricke dosimeters. To point out possible systematic biases, these correction factors were calculated with another Monte Carlo code, EGS4, widely used for years in the field of dose metrology applications. Comparison of the results showed no significant bias. When they were possible, experimental verifications confirmed the calculated values.
To derive the absorbed dose to water from a standard of absorbed dose to graphite, the metrology laboratories which apply such a method usually make use of cavity ionization chambers as transfer instruments. In addition, the BNM-LPRI has tested, as such instruments, two types of Fricke dosimeter in its cobalt-60 beam. The two procedures are compared and their results are found to be in good agreement (the difference is less than 0.1%). Both procedures are then taken into account for the calculation of the reference value of absorbed dose to water.
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