Highlights
- •Implementation of electron cross-sections in nitrogen down to ionisation threshold in Geant4-DNA.
- •Consistency check of Geant4-DNA and PTra Monte Carlo track-structure codes.
- •Good agreement between results of simulations performed using both codes.
Abstract
To facilitate the use of Geant4-DNA for radiation transport simulations in micro-
and nanodosimeters, which are physically operated with tissue-equivalent gases such
as nitrogen (and propane), this work aims to extend the cross section data available
in Geant4-DNA to include those of nitrogen for electron energies ranging from 1 MeV
down to the ionisation threshold. To achieve this, interaction cross section data
for nitrogen that have been used with the in-house PTB PTra track structure code have
been implemented in the current state-of-the-art Geant4-DNA simulation toolkit. An
intercomparison has been performed between the two codes to validate this implementation.
To quantify the agreement between the cross section models for nitrogen adopted in
PTra and those implemented in Geant4-DNA, the simulation results of both codes were
analysed using three physical parameters describing the ionisation cluster size distribution
(ICSD): mean ionisation cluster size, variance of the cluster size and the probability
to obtain a single ionisation within the target. Statistical analysis of the results
indicates that the interaction cross section models for nitrogen used in PTra (elastic
scattering, impact ionisations and electronic excitations) have been successfully
implemented in Geant4-DNA. In addition, simulated ICSDs were compared to those measured
with the Jet Counter nanodosimeter for energies between 100 and 2000 eV. For greater
energies, the ICRP data for LET and particle range were used as a reference. The modified
Geant4-DNA code and data successfully passed all these benchmarks fulfilling the requirement
for their public release in the next version of the Geant4 toolkit.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 23, 2022
Accepted:
September 12,
2022
Received in revised form:
July 25,
2022
Received:
January 6,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica e Sanitaria. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
