Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2006, pp.

855858

Comparison of Titanium Hydride (TiH2 ) and Paraffin as Neutron Moderator

Material in a Prompt Gamma Scanning System

Kyu Seok Seo and Chan Hyeong Kim

Department of Nuclear Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791

Jong Won Kim

Center for Proton Therapy, National Cancer Center, Goyang 411-769

(Received 23 December 2005)

If the proton therapy modality allowing excellent dose localization to the tumor volume and
negligible exit dose in the patient is to be taken advantage of, a proper dosimetry system is required.
We have recently designed a prompt-gamma scanning system to measure the proton range in situ by
using a Monte Carlo technique employing MCNPX, FLUKA, and SabrinaTM . The gamma scanning
system was designed to measure only the right-angled prompt gammas passing through a narrow
collimation hole in order to correlate the position with the dose distribution. The collimation part
of the scanning system, which has been constructed to measure the gammas at a 70-MeV proton
energy, is made of a set of paraffin, borated carbon, and lead layers to shield the high-energy
neutrons and secondary photons. However, in this study, we tried a titanium-hydride (TiH2 ) layer
instead of the paraffin to reduce the background radiation. Our result shows that titanium hydride
gives a better result when the distance between the phantom and the gamma scanner is short.

PACS numbers: 87.53.P.Q, 25.40.E

Keywords: Proton therapy, Prompt gammas, Monte Carlo, Neutrons, Dosimetry

I. INTRODUCTION PGS of the initial design, which is under construction,

The proton beam is becoming a more popular modality
in radiation therapy because it can deliver a highly con-
formal dose to the tumor volume while effectively saving
the neighboring healthy tissue and organs. As to clini-
cal applications of the proton beam, it is important to
know the location where the proton beam stops, i.e., the
distal fall-off location, in the human body accurately. A
slight error in this location could result in a serious conse-
quence or complication, considering the abrupt variation
of radiation dose at the end of the proton beam. It is
especially important when the proton beam is used to
save a critical organ right behind the tumor volume.
In a previous study [1], we designed a prompt-gamma
scanning system, called the Prompt Gamma Scan-
ner (PGS), to measure the distribution of right-angled
prompt gammas yielded from reactions of the proton
beam with the phantom. The system was developed af-
ter a series of Monte Carlo simulation studies for the
relationship between the proton beams distal fall-off lo-
cation and the right-angled prompt-gamma distribution.
A comparison of the depth dose and the prompt gamma
for a beam energy of 70 MeV is shown in Figure 1. The
will be tested using the proton beam at the Korea Can-
cer Center Hospital (KCCH) and then using higher beam
energies at the National Cancer Center [2].
The PGS system is designed to keep high-energy neu-
trons away from the scintillation detector. For this, a
layer of paraffin [3] is first used to moderate high-energy
neutrons. Then, borated carbon (B4 C) is used to capture
the low-energy neutrons from the paraffin layer. Finally,
lead is used to absorb the secondary capture gammas
generated from the neutron absorptions in the borated
carbon layer.
In this study, the moderator material of the initial de-
sign, paraffin, was replaced by titanium hydride (TiH2 )
to see if we could further reduce the neutron and the
secondary-gamma background levels. The study focused
on simulations of the interactions and the transports of
protons, neutrons, and photons in the water phantom to
design a PGS system by using Monte Carlo codes that
include MCNPX [4], FLUKA [5], and SRIM [6]. Most
of the simulations were performed by using the 49-node
parallel computing system at the Innovative Technology
Center for Radiation Safety (iTRS) at Hanyang Univer-
sity.

E-mail: jwkim@ncc.re.kr; Fax: +82-31-920-0149

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Fig. 1. Comparison of the depth dose distribution with the
prompt-gamma distribution at a beam energy of 70 MeV.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
We used a Monte Carlo technique to simulate particle
transport in the PGS. MCNPX was the main code and
was used with the LA150 and the ENDF/B-VI cross-
section libraries [7,8]. The simulation results were then
verified by using FLUKA and SRIM calculations when-
ever applicable. The generated particle tracks were ana-
lyzed by using SabrinaTM .
Figure 2 shows a schematic view of the PGS, together
with the movement system, which is under construction
and is to be initially tested using the 40-MeV proton
beam at the KCCH. It has a 0.4-cm-high, 5-cm-wide, and
50-cm-long collimation hole. A design goal was that only
the right-angled prompt gammas would reach a scintil-
lation detector, such as NaI(Tl), through the collimation
hole. The PGS system also has a small hole behind the
scintillator for neutrons to escape without interactions
with the scanning system. An empty space is also inten-
tionally provided around the scintillation detector to re-
duce the neutron background while keeping the prompt-
gamma field at the same level.
Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the PGS system
used for gamma scanning in a water phantom. The di-
mensions of the phantom are 20 cm 20 cm 40 cm.
The PGS system was assumed to scan the phantom at
Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 48, No. 4, April 2006
Fig. 2. The prompt-gamma scanning system under con-
struction. The bottom plate is connected to a precision move-
ment system.
Fig. 3. Schematic view of prompt gamma scanning with a
water phantom.
the center of a concrete vault having a size of 400 cm
400 cm 400 cm with a wall thickness of 100 cm. Con-
tributions from the neutrons and the gammas from the
wall of the therapy room are included.
Transport of the particles from the proton-beam inter-
actions was calculated in two steps. First, the protons
were transported in the water phantom, and all the re-
sulting secondary particles were stopped at the phantom
surface to be written as a phase space file. The phase-
space file was then used repeatedly in the subsequent
simulations to minimize the statistical errors.
The distributions of the prompt gammas were cal-
culated assuming various kinds of moderator materials,
such as paraffin, titanium hydride, and a purely absorb-
ing material, for different scanning distances. The purely
absorbing material was simulated by simply setting the
particle importance to zero for all the regions except
inside the collimation hole. Therefore, only the right-
angled prompt gammas were counted in the scintillation
detector with the background neutrons and gammas be-
ing ignored.
Comparison of Titanium Hydride (TiH2 ) and Kyu Seok Seo et al.
Fig. 4. Distributions of the photon and the neutron flu-
ences at the scintillation detector for a scanning distance of
50 cm. The dotted lines indicate neutron fluences with the
same sequence in moderator materials.
III. SIMULATION RESULTS AND
DISCUSSION
The distributions of neutrons and photons scanned by
the PGS are calculated using MCNPX, as shown in Fig-
ures 4 and 5, for different moderator materials at scan-
ning distances of 50 and 5 cm. The statistical errors were
all less than 30 %. Note that the distal fall-off location
of the 70-MeV proton beam is 4.2 cm, as calculated in
a previous study [1]. The peak-to-background (PB) ra-
tio is defined here as the ratio of the highest fluence to
the lowest or background-level fluence around the Bragg
peak of the proton beam. Therefore, a higher PB ratio
in the photon fluence distribution is always desirable to
make the distal fall-off location of the proton beam more
apparent.
Figure 4 shows the distributions of the photons and the
neutrons when the water phantom is scanned at a dis-
tance of 50 cm. The paraffin and the titanium-hydride
moderators show PB ratios of 1.5 and 1.7, respectively,
indicating titanium hydride is slightly better than paraf-
fin as a moderator material. When the particle tracks in
the PGS were analyzed using SabrinaTM [9], we found
that neutrons entering the collimation hole produced
photons in the scintillation detector. Then, the same
neutrons, which made photons in the detector, produced
photons again colliding with the PGS structure and reen-
tering the scintillation detector. However, those photons
appear as a single signal in the MCA because the reen-
tering neutrons add to the previous signal in coincidence.
The actual photon background is expected to be lower
than the calculated background.
However, as we decrease the scanning distance to 5
cm, we obtain totally different results. Figure 5 shows
the photons and the neutrons distributions when the
scanning distance is 5 cm. For paraffin, the PB ratio
decreases down to 1.3. Furthermore, the neutron back-
ground level becomes very high and almost becomes com-
parable to the level of the photon fluence. This result
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Fig. 5. Distributions of the photon and the neutron flu-
ences for a scanning distance of 5 cm. The dotted lines have
the same meanings as in Figure 4.
indicates that paraffin is not acceptable as a moderator
material for a scanning distance of 5 cm. Titanium hy-
dride, on the other hand, shows a PB ratio of 2.3 and a
relatively low neutron background.
A separate investigation with SabrinaTM shows that
neutrons are generated preferentially in the forward di-
rection. As a result, if the scanning distance is large,
there are significantly fewer neutrons entering the mod-
erator section of the PGS. In this case, selection of the
neutron moderator material is, in fact, not very critical.
This result proves that titanium hydride is an effective
neutron moderation material, but by carefully control-
ling the geometric factors, we can choose paraffin to mea-
sure the prompt-gamma distributions by using the PGS.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The distributions of the right-angled prompt gammas
that were generated by the interaction of a proton beam
with a water phantom were calculated for different mod-
erator materials, such as paraffin, titanium hydride, and
a purely absorbing material, at two different scanning
distances of 5 cm and 50 cm. Titanium hydride was
found to be a better moderator than paraffin, especially
when the water phantom was scanned at a short distance
from the PGS. However, we chose paraffin for the PGS
currently under construction as we aim to measure the
prompt-gamma distributions by adjusting the geometric
parameters. Measurements for a beam energy of 40 MeV
using the MC-50 cyclotron of the KCCH will reveal the
accuracy of the Monte Carlo simulation and will reveal
the effects of various geometric factors. Those results
will then be used to design a more advanced PGS [10,
11].
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research work has been performed under the
User Program of PEFP (Proton Engineering Frontier
-858-
Project) and Basic Atomic Energy Research Institute
(M2050805003-05B0805-00310) supported by the Min-
istry of Science and Technology (MOST) in Korea.
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