title: Impact of rare earth element added filters on the X-ray beam spectra: a Monte Carlo approach.
abstract: The effectiveness of added filters including conventional and rare earth materials for dental radiography tasks was investigated using a simulation approach. Current study focuses on the combination of a range of various filters to investigate the reduction of radiation absorbed dose and improving the quality of a radiography image. To simulate the X-ray beam spectrum, a MCNP5 code was applied. Relative intensity, beam quality, and mean energy were investigated for a typical dental radiography machine. The impact of different rare-earth materials with different thicknesses and tube voltages on the X-ray spectrum was investigated. For Aluminum as a conventional filter, the modeled X-ray spectra and HVL values were in a good agreement with those reported by IPEM. The results showed that for a 70 kVp voltage, with an increase of the thickness and atomic number of a given added filters, an increase of HVL values were observed. However, with the increase of the attenuator thickness, X-ray beam intensity decreases. For mean energy, different results were observed. It was also found that rare earth made filters reduce high energy X-ray radiation due to k-edge absorption. This leads to an ideal beam for intra-oral radiography tasks. However, as a disadvantage of rare earth added filters, the reduction of the tube output levels should also be considered.
authors: Department of Radiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Hamadan University of Medical sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
authors: Amir
authors: A
authors: Eskandarlou
authors: Department of Radiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Hamadan University of Medical sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
authors: Amir Abbas
authors: AA
authors: Jafari
authors: Department of Medical Physics, Faculty of Medicine, Hamadan University of Medical sciences, Hamadan, Iran Department of Medical Physics, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
authors: Mohammad
authors: M
authors: Mohammadi
authors: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
authors: Mehdi
authors: M
authors: Zehtabian
authors: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
authors: Reza
authors: R
authors: Faghihi
authors: Department of Radiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Hamadan University of Medical sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
authors: Abbas
authors: A
authors: Shokri
authors: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Research Centre for Health Sciences, Faculty of Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
authors: Jalal
authors: J
authors: Pourolajal
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D008674:Metals, Rare Earth / Q000737:chemistry*; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011861:Radiography, Dental / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D008674:Metals, Rare Earth
keywords: Dental radiography; diagnostic X ray; rare earth elements