THEORETICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL ESTIMATION OF THE STOPPING POWER FOR ELECTRONS AND PROTONS FOR A PAGAT DOSIMETER INFUSED WITH GOLD NANOPARTICLES IN THE ENERGY RANGE OF THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS

Abstract

The present work focuses on the behavior of the stopping power of a polymer gel dosimetry system, known
as PAGAT, infused with high atomic number nanoparticles formed by gold, with a 1 % mass concentration.
The study is carried out for different energies of electron and proton beams within ranges of therapeutic
applications, first by theoretical assessment, and then by simulation with Monte Carlo codes: PENELOPE
in the case of electrons, and FLUKA in the case of protons. The results obtained analytically show promising
behavior for gold nanoparticle infused tissue-equivalent systems, while the simulation results show better
correspondence with models that consider the net path traveled, instead of models based on the thickness
of the samples as typically done in experimental determinations.