Alongside with the development of Neutron Capture Therapy (NCT) and the use of thermal neutrons for radiotherapeutic purposes,
many efforts have been devoted to the characterization of the beam in order to optimize therapy procedures. Reliable dose
measurements should be able to determine the various (neutrons and photonic) components of the mixed beam usually employed
for therapy.
This paper studies the effect of additives such as Boric and Gadolinium nuclei on the sensitivity of neutron organic (alanine and
ammonium tartrate) dosimeters analyzed through Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) technique. These dosimeters were exposed to a
mixed (neutron-gamma) field mainly composed of thermal neutrons. The choice of 10B and 64Gd as nuclei additives is due to their
very high capture cross section for thermal neutrons. Also, after the nuclear reaction with thermal neutrons are emitted particles,
which in turn release their energy in the vicinity of the reaction site.
The irradiation with mixed (neutron-gamma) field were performed within the thermal column of the TRIGA reactor, University of
Pavia. Dosimeters readout was performed through the Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) spectrometer Bruker ECS106 located at the
Laboratory of Dosimetry ESR / TL of the Department of Physics and Chemistry - University of Palermo.
We found that the addition of Gadolinium allows to largely increase the sensitivity of the dosimeters for thermal neutrons. In
particular, a low concentration (5% by weight) of gadolinium oxide leads to an improvement of the sensitivity of neutrons more
than 10 times. In addition, for this low content of gadolinium the photon tissue equivalence is not heavily reduced. This
experimental analyses are compared with computational analyses carried out by means of Monte Carlo simulations performed with
the MCNP (Monte Carlo N-Particle) transport code. A good agreement was observed for alanine dosimeters