Development of a scintillating optical fiber dosimeter with silicon photomultipliers

A radiation dosimeter for low dose rates based on a scintillating optical fiber coupled to a high gain photon-counting silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) for light readout was developed. The dosimeter satisfies most of the requirements for in-vivo, low dose-rate and real-time dosimetry. The device uses a small scintillator, is flexible and reasonably water-equivalent for photon energies above 100 keV [1,2]. Promising results were obtained when operating the device in current mode, detecting radiation from an X-ray tube in the 15–40 kV range and for anode currents as low as a few μA. As single-photon detectors, the major drawback of SiPMs is their high dark count rate (noise), which is a problem for low dose rate measurements in single photon counting mode. This drawback can be reduced by cooling the SiPMs or by using a much more efficient proposed solution in which two SiPMs operate in coincidence mode reading out the same optical fiber, thus allowing the rejection of false events triggered by dark noise. We have implemented a simple low-cost system, with dedicated front-end electronics operating in pulse mode for coincidence detection. Performance studies of the dosimeter operating in current mode, as a function of the X-ray tube current and voltage, show good sensitivity even for low radiation dose. When operating in pulse mode under low activity gamma irradiation, the coincidence system was able to reduce the dark noise to a residual value.