Abstract
IN radiobiology, the transfer of energy from ionizing radiation to an absorber is often expressed in terms of the mean energy transferred per primary ionization and the number of such ionizations/g of absorber. Recently, Rauth and Hutchinson1, using an electron beam spectrometer with an energy resolution of about 1 eV, have directly measured the energy losses from an electron beam passing through thin organic films (‘Formvar’ and polystyrene). Very few electrons were observed to have lost energy amounts of less than 10–12 eV and the most probable energy loss was about 25 eV. For electron beams of energies of between 5 and 20 keV, the mean energy lost per primary ionization was found to be 60 ± 10 eV. This value is considerably less than that of 100 eV (ref. 2) estimated from data on gases and from calculations by Bethe3.
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References
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JOHNSON, C., RYMER, T. Existence of Collective-excitation Energy Losses from an Electron Beam passing through Biological Materials. Nature 213, 1045–1047 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2131045a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2131045a0
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