Interaction of Radiation With Matter
Interaction of Radiation With Matter
with matter
Dr Santam Chakraborty
Junior resident
Department of radiotherapy.
PGIMER
• Types of radiation:
– Electromagnetic radiation.
– Particulate radiation.
• Electromagnetic radiation:
– Mode of energy propagation for phenomena such as light
waves, heat waves, x-rays, γ-rays etc.
– Was defined by Maxwell in terms of oscillating electrical and
magnetic fields.
– Electromagnetic radiation has a dual nature The spectrum of
the electromagnetic irradiation ranges from the wavelength of
107 m (radio waves) to 10-13 m (Ultra high-energy x-rays).
– X rays and γ rays are the two major forms of electromagnetic
radiation used in modern day radiotherapy.
– The difference among the two lies in the mode of production:
• X rays are produced when high speed electrons collide with outer
electrons.
• γ rays are produced by intranuclear disintegration.
• Particulate radiation:
– Refers to the energy propagated by traveling corpuscles,
which have definite rest mass, definite momentum and a
defined position at any instant.
– Elementary atomic particles: electron, proton, neutron.
– Positron, neutrino and mesons are subatomic particles.
Nature of matter
• The smallest indivisible part of an element is known as Atom.
• The atom is made up of the nuclei and orbital electrons. The
nucleus contains two types of particles, protons, which are
positively charged and neutrons, which have no charge. The
electrons are negatively charged and their number is equal to
the number of protons, which makes the atom electrically
neutral.
• Atoms are specified as ZXA where Z = atomic number, and A
= mass number.
• According to Niels Bohr, electrons revolve in specific orbits
around the nucleus. These orbits are named as K,L,M etc; K
being innermost orbit.
• These electron orbits are synonymous with energy levels.
• Here energy refers to the potential energy of the electron.
This energy depends upon the magnitude of the coulomb
forces of attraction between the nucleus and the orbital
electrons. Higher the atomic number greater is this binding
energy.
radiobiological effects.
• Scattering refers to a change in
the direction of the photons and Fig. 3 Interaction of photons
with matter
its contributes to both attenuation
and absorption.
• Any photon, which does not suffer
the above processes is
transmitted.
Attenuation:
• When monoenergetic radiation passes through any material, a
reduction in the intensity of the beam occurs, which is known
as attenuation.
• Attenuation occurs exponentially, that is a given fraction of
the photos is removed for a given thickness of the attenuating
material.
• Exponential attenuation of a photon-
beam means that it is impossible to
reduce this beam to nothing.
2nd HVL
1st HVL
Attenuation Coefficients:
• The fractional reduction produced in any monoenergetic
photon-beam is constant for any given material per unit
thickness
• This constant is known as the linear attenuation coefficient.
• The linear attenuation coefficient (μ) is an expression of the
probability of the photon being removed by a given material.
• The linear attenuation coefficient is related to the half-value-
layer by the following expression:
μ = 0.693 / HVL
• The linear attenuation coefficient depends upon the density of
the material, and this makes it’s a less fundamental coefficient.
Thus compression of a layer of material to one half of the
thickness will not affect its attenuation.
• To circumvent this problem, the mass attenuation coefficient is
used which is defined as:
Mass attenuation coefficient = μ / ρ
• Other coefficients which are more fundamental include:
– Atomic attenuation coefficient.
– Electronic attenuation coefficient.
Coherent scattering:
• This is also known as elastic scattering, Thomson scattering,
unmodified scattering, classical scattering, Rayleigh scattering,
etc.
• This is one of the processes, which can be more easily described
by considering radiation as waves rather than as photons. In
addition it is also one of the interactions, where bound electrons
are involved.
• X-rays passing close to the atom cause the bound electrons to
vibrate momentarily at a frequency equal to that of the radiation.
These in turn emit radiation of the same frequency in all
directions.
• The energy is taken up from the beam and scattered in all
direction, but none of the energy is absorbed. Thus this is a form
of attenuation without absorption.
• This interaction is of little importance
in practical radiotherapy, but is
important in X-ray
crystallography.
• Since it involves bound electrons, it
occurs more in higher atomic number
materials, and also more with low-
energy radiations.
Photoelectric effect:
• In this phenomena, the photon disappears altogether after
interacting with the bound electron, some of the energy being
used to remove the electrons from the shell, while the rest is
imparted as kinetic energy to the photo-electron.
hν - W + ½ mν2
• The term W refers to the binding energy of the electron and the
term ½ mν2 refers to the kinetic energy of the photo electron.
• The ionized atom regains electrical neutrality by rearrangement
of the other orbital electrons. The electrons that undergo the
these rearrangements surrender some of the energy in form of a
photon known as the characteristic radiation of the atom.
• Absorption of these characteristic radiation internally in the
atom may result in emission of Auger electrons. These
electrons are monoenergetic in nature.
• The energy of the characteristic radiation (fluorescent
radiation) varies from atom to atom, and for low atomic
number elements, which make up most of the biological
materials, it is of such low energy that it is probably absorbed
by the same cell in which the initial event occurs.
• The mass photoelectric attenuation coefficient (τ/ρ) is
directly proportional to the cube of the atomic number and
inversely proportional to the cube of the radiation energy.
τ/ρ = k Z3/ E3
• The angular distribution of electrons emitted in the
photoelectric process depend upon the photon energy. As the
photon energy increases the photo electrons are emitted in a
more forward direction.
Fig. 7 : Compton’s
experiment
λ1 – λ2 = δλ = 0.024 ( 1- cos φ) Å
• Thus the wavelength change depends neither on the material being
irradiated nor on the radiation energy, but only upon the angle
through which the radiation is scattered.
• The Compton effect results in both attenuation and absorption.
Compton effect (contd.):
• The attenuation produced by the Compton effect is described
by the mass scattering coefficient (σ/ρ), and is practically
same for all substances except hydrogenous material, like
water and soft tissue, where the Compton effect is greater
(because of the higher electron density).
Practical Implications:
Attenuation doesn't • Thus concrete is as good as lead in
depend on the shielding of megavoltage equipment!
atomic number • The absorption in bones doesn't exceed
that produced in the soft tissues – unlike in
PE effect seen in orthovoltage radiation era.
• There is no Bone shielding phenomenon
unlike that seen in orthovoltage radiation.
• Port films produced in megavoltage
equipment have very little detail.
The fraction of the This means that higher beam energies allow
energy imparted to greater absorption of the dose in the body
the recoil electron with less scattering of energy. Thus with
increases as the increasing photon energy greater absorption
beam energy occurs relative to attenuation.
increases
Direction of the This implies that as the photon energy
scatter depends on increases there is a corresponding increase in
the energy of the the forward scatter of the beam. This results
incident photon in better dose distribution.
beam
Energy of the This has several important implications in
scattered radiation designing radiation protection. The maximum
is independent of energy of photons with 90° scatter is 0.511
the incident beam MeV while that for 180° scatter ( i.e.. Back
energy scatter) is 0.255 MeV. The energy of the
photons scattered at angles <90 ° will be more
than .511 MeV and will gradually approach the
incident photon energy.
Bone Hydrogen
Muscle Water
Pair production:
• When the photon with energy in excess of 1.02 MeV passes
close to the nucleus of an atom, the photon disappears, and a
positron and an electron appear. This effect is known as pair
production.
• Pair production results in attenuation of the beam with
absorption.
• The particles tend to travel in a foreword direction related to
the incident photon and while any energy distribution is
possible the most probable distribution of energy is for each
particle to acquire half of the available kinetic energy.
• The positron created as a result loses its energy by interaction
with an electron to give rise to two annihilation photons, each
having 0.51MeV energy. Again because momentum is
conserved in the process to photons are rejected in opposite
directions. This reaction is known as an annihilation
reaction.
• Thus, the energy absorbed from the beam (with incident
energy, E) is given by:
E - 1.02 MeV
• Pair production results from an interaction with the
electromagnetic field of the nucleus and as such the
probability of this process increases rapidly with the atomic
number (Z2).
• In addition, the likelihood of this interaction increases as the
photon energy increases in contrast to the Compton effects
and the photoelectric effect.
• The pair production coefficient (π) is directly proportional to Z2
and log of incident photon energy.
π = k Z2 log (E)
Photo nuclear reaction:
• This reaction occurs when the photon has energy greater than
the binding energy of the nucleus itself. In this case, it enters
the nucleus and ejects a particle from it. The photon
disappears altogether, and any energy possesses in excess of
that needed to remove the particle becomes the kinetic
energy of escape of that particle.
• The threshold energy for this effect is 10.8 MeV, and a
maximum is reached about 5 MeV above this threshold.
• The main importance of this reaction lies in the
unsubstantiated fear that ejection of a nuclear particle may
result in the nucleus becoming radioactive. This had lead to
the assumptions that patients may become radioactive
following megavoltage radiotherapy in the earlier days of this
technique.
• Nowadays, the main use of this reaction is for energy
calibration of machines producing high energy photons. For
this the following reaction is used:
29Cu +γ 29Cu62 + 0n1
63
Relative importance the reactions:
• The total mass attenuation coefficient is the sum of three
individual coefficients; photoelectric coefficient, mass
scattering coefficient and pair production coefficient:
(μ/ρ) = (τ/ρ)+(σ/ρ)+(π/ρ)
• When we plot the total coefficient versus the photon energy,
in different media, the following effects are seen:
• At low energies the mass attenuation coefficient is larger,
especially in high atomic number media, because of the
predominance of photoelectric interactions in these
circumstances.
• That attenuation coefficient then decreases rapidly with the
energy till the photon energy far exceeds the electron binding
energy and Compton effect becomes the predominant mode
of interaction. In between the ranges of 200 KeV- 4 MeV,
Compton scattering is the predominant mode of interaction.
• At this energy range, the mass attenuation coefficients also
become independent of the atomic number and actually
become more for soft tissues, which have more hydrogen
content.
• Beyond 4 MeV pair production results in increasing mass
attenuation coefficients specially for high atomic number
elements.
• Thus very high-energy radiations (> 20 MeV) are less-
penetrating than some lower energy radiations and are not
used in radiotherapy!!
– Up to 50KeV – PE effect is important.
– 60 KeV - 90 KeV – Both PE and Compton effects are important.
– 200 KeV – 4 MeV – Compton effect is increasingly important.
– Beyond 20 MeV – Pair production becomes important.
Absorption:
• Most of electrons set in motion by the above interactions lose
energy by inelastic collisions with the atomic electrons of
the material.
• Some electrons will also loose energy by bremsstrahlung
interactions with the nuclei. This energy is irradiated out of
the local volume as x-rays and is therefore not included in the
calculation of locally absorbed energy.
• Thus, the energy absorption coefficient(μen) is defined as
the product of the energy transfer coefficient(μtr) and (1-g)
where g is the fraction of energy of secondarily charged
particles lost to bremsstrahlung in the material.
μen = μtr (1-g)
• In most interactions involving the soft tissues, the
bremsstrahlung component is negligible, and the energy
absorption coefficient is equal to the energy transfer
coefficient under these conditions.
• The relationship between the mass attenuation coefficients
and the mass absorption coefficient varies as per the radiation
energy as follows:
91%
% of attenuated energy
absorbed
μ/ρ
Mass coefficient
μen
%
96
%
%
71
15
%
46
10 KeV
100 KeV 1 MeV 10 MeV
Photon energy
Absorption (contd.):
• The mass absorption coefficients are practically identical for
most biological materials over a wide range of energies in
which the Compton process predominates as this effect does
not depend upon the atomic number. In this energy range,
the absorption per gram is maximum for hydrogen, because
of its higher electron density.
• However in very high and very low energy ranges the high
atomic number materials e.g. Bone absorb more radiation
with several unfortunate consequences.
• The situation is remarkably different in case of low-energy
radiation, where higher than atomic number greater is the
energy absorbed.
• Also, in very high energy ranges where pair production
predominates, the mass absorption coefficients again become
higher for the higher atomic number elements.