title: Thermal drift reduction with multiple bias current for MOSFET dosimeters.
abstract: New thermal compensation methods suitable for p-channel MOSFET (pMOS) dosimeters with the usual dose readout procedure based on a constant drain current are presented. Measuring the source-drain voltage shifts for two or three different drain currents and knowing the value of the zero-temperature coefficient drain current, I(ZTC), the thermal drift of source-drain or threshold voltages can be significantly reduced. Analytical expressions for the thermal compensation have been theoretically deduced on the basis of a linear dependence on temperature of the parameters involved. The proposed thermal modelling has been experimentally proven. These methods have been applied to a group of ten commercial pMOS transistors (3N163). The thermal coefficients of the source-drain voltage and the threshold voltage were reduced from -3.0 mV  °C(-1), in the worst case, down to -70 µV  °C(-1). This means a thermal drift of -2.4 mGy  °C(-1) for the dosimeter. When analysing the thermal drifts of all the studied transistors, in the temperature range from 19 to 36 °C, uncertainty was obtained in the threshold voltage due to a thermal drift of ±9 mGy (2 SD), a commonly acceptable value in most radiotherapy treatments. The procedures described herein provide thermal drift reduction comparable to that of other technological or numerical strategies, but can be used in a very simple and low-cost dosimetry sensor.
authors: Departamento de Electrónica y Tecnología de Computadores, ETSIIT, Universidad de Granada, E-18071 Granada, Spain. carvajal@ugr.es
authors: M A
authors: MA
authors: Carvajal
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Martínez-Olmos
authors: D P
authors: DP
authors: Morales
authors: J A
authors: JA
authors: Lopez-Villanueva
authors: A M
authors: AM
authors: Lallena
authors: A J
authors: AJ
authors: Palma