Determination of Dose-Equivalent Response of A Typical Diamond Microdosimeter in Space Radiation Fields

Abstract

<strong><em>Introduction</em></strong>: Microdosimeters are helpful for dose equivalent measurement in unknown radiation fields. The favorable physical and mechanical properties of the detector-grade chemical vapor deposition diamond materials have made the diamond microdosimeters suitable candidate for radioprotection applications in space. The purpose of this work is the investigation of the dose equivalent response of a typical diamond microdosimeter with laser-induced graphitized electrodes for use in space radiation fields. <strong><em>Materials and Methods: </em></strong>The Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit was applied to simulate the particle transport within the microdosimeter, and to determine the mean chord length and the dose equivalent response of the microdosimeter, based on the lineal energy dependent quality factor. <strong><em> </em></strong><strong><em>Results:</em></strong> The linear stopping power of the protons and alpha particles with energies higher than 5 MeV and 10 MeV respectively can be estimated within20% of deviation using the microdosimeter response. The fluence to dose equivalent conversion coefficients calculated affirms that there is an adequate agreement between the calculated coefficients and other research group results. <strong><em>Conclusion:</em></strong> The reasonable agreement between the dose equivalents calculated in this study and the results reported by other researchers confirmed that this type of microdosimeter could be a promising candidate suitable for the measurement of the dose equivalent in space radiation fields.