Dose area product primary standards established by graphite calorimetry at the LNE-LNHB for small radiation fields in radiotherapy.

PURPOSE

To present primary standards establishment in terms of Dose Area Product (DAP) for small field sizes.

METHODS

A large section graphite calorimeter and two plane-parallel ionization chambers were designed and built in-house. These chambers were calibrated in a 6MV FFF beam at the maximum dose rate of 1400 UM/min for fields defined by specifically designed circular collimators of 5, 7.5, 10, 13 and 15 mm diameter and jaws of 5, 7, 10, 13 and 15 mm side length on a Varian TrueBeam linac.

RESULTS

The two chambers show the same behaviour regardless of field shape and size. From 5 to 15 mm, calibration coefficients slightly increase with the field size with a magnitude of 1.8% and 1.1% respectively for the two chambers, and are independent of the field shape. This tendency was confirmed by Monte Carlo calculations. The average associated uncertainty of the calibration coefficients is around 0.6% at k=1.

CONCLUSIONS

For the first time, primary standards in terms of DAP were established by graphite calorimetry for an extended range of small field sizes. These promising results open the door for an alternative approach in small fields dosimetry.