Gel dosimeters as useful dose and thermal-fluence detectors in boron neutron capture therapy

The dosimetry method based on Fricke–Xylenol-Orange-infused gels in form of layers has shown noticeable potentiality for in-phantom or in-free-beam dose and thermal flux profiling and imaging in the high fluxes of thermal or epithermal neutrons utilised for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). Gel-dosimeters in form of layers give the possibility not only of obtaining spatial dose distributions but also of achieving measurements of each dose contribution in neutron fields. The discrimination of the various dose components is achieved by means of pixel-to-pixel manipulations of pairs of images obtained with gel-dosimeters having different isotopic composition. It is possible to place large dosimeters, detecting in such a way large dose images, because the layer geometry of dosimeters avoids sensitive variation of neutron transport due to the gel isotopic composition. Some results obtained after the last improvements of the method are reported.