Optimizing Novel Inorganic Scintillation Detectors for Applications in Medical Physics

Abstract

Scintillating materials continue to play a major role in radiation dosimetry. This work focused on the optimization of inorganic scintillator-based detectors for clinical and preclinical optical fiber dosimetry applications. The detector design originally utilized gadolinium oxysulfide-filled bore in a PMMA optical fiber. Recently, Monte Carlo simulation results confirmed improved perturbation metrics by a ZnS phosphor-based design. ZnS:Ag scintillator exhibits a higher scintillation efficiency and presents its greatest utility at shallow depths, due to its absorption characteristics. In this paper, we detail the optimization of the detector designs to date and present Monte Carlo simulations carried out to investigate dose perturbation in an optimized ZnS-based scintillation detector.