Photographic Dosimetry of X- and Gamma Rays 15 U
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
* Keterence dook PHOTOGRAPHIC DOSIMETRY OF X- AND GAMMA RAYS Handbook 57 U. S. Department of Commerce National Bureau of Standards HANDBOOKS OF THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS The following Handbooks issued by the Bureau are avail¬ able by purchase from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C., at the prices indicated: No. Price 23 Radium Protection_ $0. 20 27 Safe Handling of Radioactive Luminous Compounds_ . 10 28 (1944) Screw Thread Standards for Federal Services_ 1. 25 1950 Supplement_ . 60 30 National Electrical Safety Code_ 1. 75 31 Safety Rules for the Installation and Maintenance of Elec¬ trical Supply Stations_ . 10 34 Safety Rules for the Operation of Electric Equipment and Lines__ . 25 35 Safety Rules for Radio Installations_ . 15 36 Safety Rules for Electric Fences_ . 15 37 Testing of Weighing Equipment_ 1. 25 39 Discussion of the National Electrical Safety Code_ 1. 25 41 Medical X-ray Protection Up to Two Million Volts_ . 25 42 Safe Handling of Radioactive Isotopes_ . 20 43 Installation and Maintenance of Electric Supply and Com¬ munication Lines. Safety Rules and Discussion_ 2. 00 44 Specifications, Tolerances, and Regulations for Commercial Weighing and Measuring Devices_ 1. 25 45 Testing of Measuring Equipment_ 1. 50 46 Code for Protection Against Lightning_ . 40 47 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection and of the International Com¬ mission on Radiological Units 1950_ 20 48 Control and Removal of Radioactive Contamination in Laboratories_ 15 49 Recommendations for Waste Disposal of Phosphorus-32 and Iodine-131 for Medical Users_ 15 50 X-ray Protection Design_ 20 51 Radiological Monitoring Methods and Instruments_ 15 52 Maximum Permissible Amounts of Radioisotopes in the Human Body and Maximum Permissible Concentrations in Air and Water_ 20 53 Recommendations for the Disposal of Carbon-14 Wastes. _ 15 55 Protection Against Betatron-Synchrotron Radiations up to 100 Million Electron Volts_ 25 56 Safe Handling of Cadavers Containing Radioactive Iso¬ topes_ 15 57 Photographic Dosimetry of X- and Gamma Rays_ 15 U. S. Department of Commerce • Sinclair Weeks, Secretary National Bureau of Standards • A. V. Astin, Director Photographic Dosimetry of X- and Gamma Rays Margarete Ehrlich National Bureau of Standards Handbook 57 Issued August 20, 1954 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D, C. - Price 15 cents Preface This Handbook contains primary factual data and basic principles necessary for photographic dosimetry of X- and gamma rays. It was prepared in response to an urgent need felt in various places for more complete information on this topic. Since the Radiation Physics Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards has worked extensively in this field for a number of years, it appeared that it would be helpful to other workers to publish this accumulation of material as a general information handbook. Most of the information presented is concerned with the use of commercial photographic film for X- and gamma- ray dosimetry. Emphasis is placed on those properties of photographic emulsions that are basic to radiation dosim¬ etry. Likewise, attention is called to limitations inherent in the methods and materials and to precautions that should be observed. Because considerable flexibility in techniques and procedures of film dosimetry is possible with¬ out appreciable effect on the end result, no attempt is made to specify all of the details uniquely. The work in preparing this Handbook was supported in part by the U. S. Army, Signal Corps Engineering Labora¬ tories. Acknowledgment is also made, of the assistance rendered through the comments offered by the various reviewers of the preliminary draft of the Handbook. A. V. Astin, Director. hi Contents Page Preface_ _ hi 1. Introduction_ 1 2. Use of photographic film for the measurement of radiation dose_ 2 2.1. Dose definition __ 2 2.2. Measurement of X- or gamma-rav dose in terms of photographic density_ 2 2.3. Limitations of photographic dosimetry due to energy dependence_ 4 2.4. Considerations of electronic equilibrium_ 6 2.5: Directional dependence_ 9 3. Criteria for the selection of a photographic material for dosim¬ etry_ 10 3.1. Uniformity of film emulsions_ 10 3.2. Energy dependence_ 12 3.3. Contrast, sensitivity, and useful range_ 12 4. Calibration of photographic dosimeters_ 15 4.1. Radiation spectrum_ 15 4.2. Measurement of beam dose_ 16 LO . Photographic processing_ 16 CD . Photographic densitometry and interpretation of densities in terms of exposure_ 23 7. Storage of photographic material_ 23 8. Summary_ 26 9. References_ 28 IV Photographic Dosimetry of X- and Gamma Rays Margarete Ehrlich 1. Introduction The need for inexpensive, rugged, but reliable, devices for the measurement of X- and gamma radiation has greatly increased the interest in the radiation response of commercially available photographic film. The use of photographic film for X- and gamma-ray dosimetry is theoretically justifiable, but yields useful and reliable results only when based on a sound under¬ standing of the various phases of photographic sensitometry and of its inherent limitations. It is the purpose of this Handbook to clarify the basic concepts of the use of commercial photographic film prod¬ ucts for X- and gamma-ray dosimetry, to organize some of the information accumulated in the Radiation Physics Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards during the past years, and to present this information in a form that should prove useful to other workers in the field of photo¬ graphic X- and gamma-ray dosimetry. Specifically, this Handbook deals with the properties of photographic emulsions that make their use for radiation dosimetry possible. It points out the limitations of the method and discusses the precautions to be taken in the selection, exposure, processing, and densitometry of the film material. Because of the great flexibility in the techniques and procedures of film dosimetry, no attempt is made to specify them uniquely. Specific techniques should be chosen and adjusted according to local conditions. While some of the material contained in this Handbook is general enough to apply to photographic dosimetry not only of X- and gamma rays, but also of other types of radiation, the detailed discussions are confined to X- and gamma-ray dosimetry. It is felt that due to the rather complicated nature of photographic dosimetry of such 1 types of radiations as beta ravs and neutron beams, it is not possible to issue authoritative statements on this subject at the present time. 2. Use of Photographic Film for the Measure¬ ment of Radiation Dose Photographic radiation dosimetry may be defined as the measurement of the dose of a particular electromagnetic or corpuscular radiation by means of establishing a one-to-one correspondence between dose and photographic effect. It is therefore of importance to delineate the terms “dose” and “photographic effect” clearly and to understand the difficulties inherent in the measurement of these quantities. 2.1. Dose Definition The International Commission on Radiological Units recommended that dose be expressed in terms of the quantity of energy absorbed per unit mass of irradiated material at the place of interest. The Commission decided, however, that the roentgen (defined in air) should continue to be recognized as the unit of X- and gamma-ray dose in view of its long-established usefulness, at least for quantum energies up to 3 Mev [1].1 Measurements of the photographic effect are made in terms of diffuse transmission density [2], representing the logarithm to the base 10 of the opacity of a processed photographic film sample [3]. 2.2. Measurement of X- or Gamma-Ray Dose in Terms of Photographic Density The difficulty in relating dose to photographic density lies in the fact that, while the roentgen is a measure of radi¬ ation energy absorbed in air, the photographic action of X- or gamma radiation is essentially the result of ionization in the silver-halide crystals of the photographic emulsion and in the materials surrounding it [4, 5]. As the true absorption coefficient of air differs greatly from that of silver halides both in absolute value and in its dependence on quantum energy, and as the stopping powers of air and silver halides are not the same, it is to be expected that the ionizing action of X- and gamma radiation as a function of quantum energy for silver halides does not parallel that of air [6]. For Figures in brackets indicate the literature references at the end of this Handbook. 2 Figure 1. Correlation between photographic response and ionization in air as a junction of energy. radiation energies at which the range of the secondary emis¬ sion produced in the emulsion proper is large compared to the emulsion thickness, the absorption coefficient and stop¬ ping power of the surrounding materials must also be taken into consideration; the situation is then even more compli¬ cated. However, a quantitative correspondence between photographic response and ionization in air can be estab¬ lished. Figure 1 illustrates this fact for a typical emulsion. A quantity proportional to the reciprocal of the exposure needed to produce a photographic density of 1.0 is plotted against the effective radiation energy 2 of heterochromatic X-radiation whose spectral width had been narrowed by means of proper filtration. The ordinate may be considered a measure of film speed [7]. The term sensitivity is used in this report as a synonym for speed. It is a quantity in¬ versely proportional to the dose needed to produce a given photographic density. It is not to be confused with radio- graphic sensitivity or fault sensitivity, which for a given radiographic geometry indicates a film’s resolving power and contrast [8]. 2 Effective radiation energy is here defined as the energy ol' the monochromatic X-ray beam that has the same absorption characteristics under specified conditions as the particular heterochromatic radiation.