Development of silicon monolithic arrays for dosimetry in external beam radiotherapy

New tools for dosimetry in external beam radiotherapy have been developed during last years in the framework of the collaboration among the University of Florence, INFN Florence and IBA Dosimetry. The first step (in 2007) was the introduction in dosimetry of detector solutions adopted from high energy physics, namely epitaxial silicon as the base detector material and a guard ring in diode design. This allowed obtaining state of the art radiation hardness, in terms of sensitivity dependence on accumulated dose, with sensor geometry particularly suitable for the production of monolithic arrays with modular design. Following this study, a 2D monolithic array has been developed, based on 6.3×6.3 cm² modules with 3 mm pixel pitch. This prototype has been widely investigated and turned out to be a promising tool to measure dose distributions of small and IMRT fields. A further linear array prototype has been recently design with improve spatial resolution (1 mm pitch) and radiation hardness. This 24 cm long device is constituted by 4×64 mm long modules. It features low sensitivity changes with dose (0.2%/kGy) and dose per pulse (±1% in the range 0.1–2.3 mGy/pulse, covering applications with flattened and unflattened photon fields). The detector has been tested with very satisfactory results as a tool for quality assurance of linear accelerators, with special regards to small fields, and proton pencil beams. In this contribution, the characterization of the linear array with unflattened MV X-rays, ⁶⁰Co radiation and 226 MeV protons is reported. - Highlights: • A silicon monolithic 1D array with 1 mm pixel pitch was developed. • The detector was characterized with ⁶⁰Co, unflattened MV X-rays, 226 MeV protons. • Dose linearity in clinical relevance range and dose profiles were measured. • The detector performs good agreement with reference detectors. • The technology is suitable in dose profiling in MV X-ray and proton therapy