Assessment of Gamma‐Ray Transmission Through Polymeric Biomaterials at Energies Selected via Compton Scattering

ABSTRACT The study demonstrates the novel use of Compton scattering to determine the attenuation characteristics of polymeric materials at desired gamma energies which are not accessible from conventional radioisotopes. The investigations on polymer‐based biomaterials have grown considerably due to their innumerable applications across different fields of science viz. medical, agricultural, industry, and technology etc. The present findings focus on experimental/computational evaluation of key radiation interaction parameters namely mean free path, attenuation coefficients, tenth‐value layer, transmission factor, effective atomic number, radiation protection efficiency, electron density and computed tomography numbers for polymers useful in biomedical applications. The experimental set‐up is designed to measure these interaction parameters of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) at variable gamma energies, obtained innovatively through scattering technique, employing a calibrated 2″ × 2″ NaI(Tl) scintillation detector. Additionally, theoretical and simulation results for attenuation parameters are computed with WinXCom and FLUKA Monte Carlo code, respectively. The CT number results indicate that PVC exhibits higher attenuation than PMMA and PTFE material, suggesting its suitability for simulating relatively denser anatomical structures. Overall, the experimental findings are well consistent with theoretical and simulation‐based results, showing maximum relative difference of 1.17%, thus confirming reliability of the methodology and material performance.