The microdosimetric one-hit detector model for calculating the relative efficiency of the alanine pellet dosimeter in low energy X-ray beams

The alanine pellet dosimeter is a widely used reference dosimeter in both medical and industrial dosimetry across a wide range of beam qualities. A challenge when using alanine in low energy X-ray beams is its strong energy dependence; a significant decline is observed in the alanine response per dose-to-water relative to irradiations in a cobalt-60 reference field. This decrease is caused by the physical difference in alanine to water dose ratios combined with a radiochemical decrease in the intrinsic detector efficiency but is difficult to characterize mainly due to experimental uncertainties.