Photon Shielding Capability of Concrete Doped with FeO for Radiotherapy Application

Abstract

This study investigates the photon shielding capability of concrete doped with FeO, photon attenuation parameters were determined for medical radiation application. The Win XCOM software was used to determine the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) of the concrete doped FeO samples (0, 30, 50, 70, and 100 % FeO content) for the energy range (0.01-10.0 MeV). The linear attenuation coefficient(LAC), half value layer (HVL), tenth value layer (TVL), mean free path (MFP), and effective atomic number (Zeff) were calculated from the MAC values. The MAC values of the samples decrease rapidly up to 0.12 MeV, and beyond 0.12 MeV, Compton scattering becomes effective at intermediate energies. The LAC value varies with energy in a similar way as MAC. The calculated HVL and MFP were observed to decline as the FeO doping of the concrete increased which accounts for the three-photon interaction mechanisms' effectiveness in the variation of HVL and MFP values with energy. The Zeff shows minimal variation as the energy increases in all the concrete-doped FeO samples. The study indicates that the attenuation of shielding material can be significantly enhanced by FeO doping and can be deployed for medical radiation shielding applications.