Recombination characteristics of therapeutic ion beams on ion chamber dosimetry

In heavy ion radiotherapy, ionization chambers are regarded as a standard for determining the absorbed dose given to patients. In ion dosimetry, it is necessary to correct the radiation quality, which depends on the initial recombination effect. This study reveals for the radiation quality dependence of the initial recombination in air in ion dosimetry. Ionization charge was measured for the beams of protons at 40–160 MeV, carbon at 21–400 MeV/n, and iron at 23.5–500 MeV/n using two identical parallel-plate ionization chambers placed in series along the beam axis. The downstream chamber was used as a monitor operated with a constant applied voltage, while the other chamber was used for recombination measurement by changing the voltage. The ratio of the ionization charge measured by the two ionization chambers showed a linear relationship with the inverse of the voltage in the high-voltage region. The initial recombination factor was estimated by extrapolating the obtained linear relationship to infinite v...