Radioluminescence of NaMgF₃ : characterisation for radiotherapy
Abstract
This study seeks to evaluate doped synthetic NaMgF₃ as a luminescence material for applications in radiotherapy dosimetry. Two largely independent investigations were undertaken: a basic radiotherapy characterisation of a pre-existing prototype system incorporating NaMgF₃ activated with europium and manganese, and the fundamental characterisation of infrared emitting species in the same crystal host. During the radiotherapy characterisation it was found that the tested system was in many regards unsuitable for use in radiotherapy, suffering from radiation damage, stem effects, and statistical uncertainty imposed by optical inefficiency. Radiation damage effects were found to be predominantly caused by radiation induced F–centres in NaMgF₃, while stem effects were dominated by Cerenkov radiation as seen in other fibre coupled systems at megavoltage x-ray energies. It was identified that both of these difficulties could be substantially mitigated by exploiting luminescence at near infrared rather than visible wavelengths, spurring the subsequent investigation into infrared emitters. A range of rare earth and transition metal dopants were then investigated in the same crystal host, of which divalent nickel was identified as the most promising. With this dopant a broad emission band occurs in the region of 1600 nm, at which wavelength the Cerenkov stem effect is theoretically reduced by at least an order of magnitude with respect to that detected in the near ultraviolet with a…
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