Thermoluminescence properties of CVD diamond for clinical dosimetry use

The application of diamond to dosimetry is desirable because of its tissue equivalence, chemical inertness and small size, but this has not been commercially viable owing to the non-reproducible response of natural diamond. The chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of diamond permits controlled, reproducible and large-scale production of this material at potentially low cost. An investigation of some clinically relevant features like the depth-dose distribution as well as the absorbed dose profile, obtained using thermoluminescence (TL), is reported for several CVD diamond films. The TL characterisation presented here shows that CVD diamond films should be excellent TL-mode detectors in instances of radiotherapy and in vivo radiation dosimetry. (authors)