NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS AND METHODS I20 (I974) II3-II9; © NORTH-HOLLAND PUBLISHING CO.

C A L C U L A T I O N OF T H E CURRENT OF AN I O N I Z A T I O N C H A M B E R E X P O S E D TO A
P U L S E D E L E C T R O M A G N E T I C R A D I A T I O N FIELD AND C O M P A R I S O N W I T H
MEASUREMENTS

H. D I N T E R and K. T E S C H

DESY, D 2000 I-l'amburg 52, Notkestieg 1, Germany

Received 14 January 1974

The charge concentration in an ionization chamber exposed to
an electromagnetic field is calculated up to moderately high
dose rates. F r o m this the ionization current is derived for
continuous radiation fields and for pulsed radiation fields with
low and high repetition rates as well as for one single radiation
pulse. The calculations are tested using an argon-filled chamber
at pressures between 1 and 50 atm, average dose rates up to
10 Rad/h and duty cycles between 2 × 10-6 and 1 x 10-4. With-
out using a free parameter an agreement better than 20% on
the average is achieved.

1,, Introduction and nothing is known about their impurities. Therefore

Calculation of the current of an ionization chamber
leads to a complicated system of differential equations
which in general cannot be solved (see e.g., ref. 1). A
special difficulty turns out to be the calculation of the
column recombination. This difficulty is generally
removed when ionization chambers of moderately high
fiJ[ling pressure are used for dose measurements of
electromagnetic radiation, e.g. at electron accelerators.
Here corpuscular radiation with high ionization density
p][ays a smaller role. There is, however, the additional
problem that the radiation is pulsed at a very low duty
cycle (e.g. 1 x l 0 - 3 to 1 x 10-4), SO that high instan-
taneous dose rates rise also in accessible areas. Further-
more, short single radiation pulses may occur if, for
instance, the stored beam of an electron storage ring
suddenly gets lost.
We want to show that with some simplifications the
re,sponse of an ionization chamber in continuous as
well as in pulsed electromagnetic radiation fields can
be calculated in a simple way. The results are compared
with measurements which we performed with an
argon-filled cylindrical chamber. As far as we know
there is only one paper in which similar comparisons
with very small ionization chambers are described4).
2. Theoretical considerations
In the following an attempt is made to describe the
behaviour of an ionization chamber under simplified
assumptions. As an example we consider the filling gas
argon.
The following assumptions are made:
1) Filling gases are often only technically pure gases,
113
we assume that the free electrons attach at once to
molecules of impurities X so that equal numbers of
Ar+-ions and X - - i o n s are present. They are assumed
to have the same mobility. The attachments of electrons
to big, immobile molecules (e.g. oils or aerosols) as
well as the formation of Ar+-ions are not considered.
2) Since we are only interested in the electromagnetic
radiation and not in radiation components with higher
ionization density, we only consider ion-ion volume
recombination. The neglected column recombination
should lead, at higher pressures, to an overestimation
of the ion current.
3) The influence of the space charge of the ion cloud
on the electric field in the chamber should be negligible.
That also means that we confine ourselves to moder-
ately high pressures and moderately high dose rates.
4) The diffusion of ions due to their thermal motion
is neglected.
2.1. GENERALEQUATIONFOR THE ION CONCENTRATION
The time derivation of the ion concentration n (t) is
given by the concentration per unit time which is
formed by the irradiation, q, minus the concentration
which is lost per unit time by recombination and by
ion removal:
d/'/
-- = q-nect-nT. (1)
dt
Here ~ is the recombination coefficient and 7 is a
removal coefficient (see sect. 2.2.1).
Provided that n = n o at t = 0, the solution of the differ-
 114 H. D I N T E R A N D K. T E S C H

ential equation reads: by the Langevin equation:

n (t) = --y \([ e~W' e

c~ = - - (k + + k - ) . (7)
(~/~) no + ½(w + ~)3-' + (e '~'- l) W
-1 --
80

Here k is the mobility of the ions and e o = 0 . 8 8 5 x

- ½(w+ 1)), (2)
N' 10 11 A s V - 1 m - 1 . The experimental values o f
are generally lower, so that a factor c < 1 has to be
where w = (1 +4uq/y2) ~. applied to eq. (7) (ref. 2):

2.2. DEFINITION OF THE PARAMETERS e

= c--(k + +k-). (8)
2.2.1. Ion transit time and removal coefficient gO
F r o m the dimensions o f the sensitive volume of the
We assume c=0.34. This value is obtained by a
chamber and from the velocity of the ions it is possible
simple estimate where a spherical volume with radius
to calculate their m a x i m u m transit time t L from one
½ro is assigned to each ion and where the filling factor
electrode to the other. It is
of the close-packed structure (0.74) is used.
G Together with the lip dependence of the mobility
tL - , (3) one obtains for the recombination coefficient
kU
2e ko
where k is the ion mobility in the filling gas, U is the = 0.34 - - - (9)
voltage and G is a factor depending only on the geom- 6o P

etry of the chamber. In all our calculations the value

F o r instance one has for a plate geometry:
cm 2
Gp = d 2, ko = 1.6 - - a t m
Vs
for a cylindrical geometry:
is used for the mobility for Ar + and also for X - (see
sect. 2) in argon 1).
G¢ = ~1 ( r 2z - r 2 ) l n -r2, (4)
r1
2.2.3. Production rate q
for a spherical geometry: The production rate q is the n u m b e r of ion pairs
which is produced in the ionization chamber per unit
Gs 3 ( r 2 - r~) 1 1 time and unit volume:

According to eq. (1) n 7 is the n u m b e r o f ions o f one q - . (10)

e dt G
polarity which is removed by an electrode per unit time
and per unit volume. These ions represent a current Here PG is the density and m the mass of the filling gas.
The exposure in the filling gas (dQ/dm)G can be cal-
1 = en7 Vo, (5) culated from the equilibrium exposure in air:
where V o is the sensitive volume of the chamber.
Since, on the other hand, I = e n Vo/tL it follows for
o wo ( m . / p ) . , r olr'
the removal coefficient
= t~- l. (6) where the quantities (t~./P) are the mass energy
absorption coefficients of the filling gas and of air,
respectively, and W is the average energy required for
2.2.2. Recombination coefficient
creating an ion pair.
The experimental determination o f recombination
The usual unit of exposure rate Jair is
coefficients is very difficult. Therefore, very few values
are known, and these only for the most c o m m o n 1 R / h = 7.16x 10 -11 A/g.
gases ~, z). For pressures higher than 3 atm it was shown
that c~ is proportional to lip and is approximately given With this definition and with eq. (11) one obtains
 CURRENT OF AN I O N I Z A T I O N CHAMBER 115

in eq. (10) where G is the geometry factor of eq. (3) .For very high
voltages the ionization current becomes constant, i.e.
q = 7.16× 10- 1 ' p~ Wair (]'ten/P)G r/Jai r Ah__. (12)
saturation of the chamber is achieved. Then from
e WG (//en/P)air gR
eq. (14) or (15) the saturation current is, respectively,
Tlhe term ,/ takes into account the absorption of the
Is = e Vo q, or I~ = 2AB. (17)
primary radiation in the wall of the ionization chamber.
Since
2.3.2. Pulsed radiation field," low pulse frequency
pgo A pulsed radiation field is, for instance, produced by
P = P0----,
Po T a pulsed accelerator. It is assumed that the pulse length
( T = temperature) one can write tp is very short compared with the repetition time tw.
Low pulse frequency means that tw is long in comparison
q = MpJ. (13)
with the maximum transit time of the ions in the cham-
With the values W,~r = 33.7 eV and WG = 26.2 eV ber, tL. Thus all ions have been removed from the
(ref. 1) and with the energy absorption coefficients chamber volume before the next radiation pulse pro-
averaged between 0.25 and 4.5 MeV (ref. 3) one obtains duces new ions. Furthermore we a s s u m e t p ~ t L.
a production rate of The situation is described by a switching-on and a
switching-off process. If the radiation pulse is much
q = 7.56× 105 c m - 3 s -~
shorter than the ion transit time we assume that during
at a pressure of 10 atm and an exposure rate of 0.1 R/h; the time tp no recombination occurs. From eq. (2)
this includes r/= 0.9. follows, with no = 0 and ~ = 0 , a linear rise of the con-
centration (switching-on process)
2.3. DiscussioN or SOME SPECIAL CASES
n(t) = qt. (lS)
After the calculation of the magnitudes ~, q, and 7,
eq. (2) will be discussed and numerically evaluated for At time tp the irradiation ceases and the concentration
some special cases. in the chamber is no = qtp (initial concentration for the
switching-off process).
2.:3.1. Continuous radiation f i e l d Then, due to the applied voltage, the oppositely
The continuous radiation field is temporally constant charged ion clouds move to the electrodes. Recom-
as in the case of being generated by a radioactive source bination can only take place in that volume in which
of large half-life. Transient phenomena are not to be both ion types are still present (recombination volume).
considered or they shall be negligibly short compared This volume becomes continually smaller, but the
with the measuring process. concentration in it is only decreased by recombination.
In such a field an ionization chamber delivers an From eq. (2) and with the initial concentration no and
ionization current of q = 0 and 7 = 0 (switching-off process) we obtain the
I = enyV o . concentration
n(t) = no (19)
according to eq. (5).
1 +~not
With an initial concentration no = 0 eq. (2) yields an
equilibrium concentration after the switching-on
process and at constant irradiation and constant I 12-
removal. From this follows an ion current of
])2 10"
I = e V0 ~ - [-(1 +4c~q/72) ~ - 1]. (14)
¢: 8-
O
Using eqs. (3) and (6) the saturation curve is given by
'2 6-
1
I = A U z [(1 + B / U 2 ) ~ - 1]. (lS) Ro , , I T
~
100 tL tw 200 300 ms
Here the following abbreviations are made: time--------,-

eVo kz 1 4c~q Fig. 1. Ionization current o f the chamber described in section 3,

A = 2c~ G 2' and B = ~G 2, (16) tL<tw. F=6Hz (tw= 170 ms); U = I . 8 k V ( t L = 125 ms);
p = 10 atm; ~--- 10 Rad/h.
 116 rI. D I N T E R AND K. T E S C H

for the recombination volume. The current measured at volume a residual concentration of
time t at the electrodes corresponds to an ion concen-
Q.
tration at time ½t in the recombination volume. It nR = - - (26)
follows with eq. (5) eVo
results. After the arrival of the next radiation pulse the
l ( t ) = e Vo ~ no . (20) new initial concentration is n~ = no +nR, where no qtp. =
l+½~n0 t
Now charge separation and recombination follow
As an example, a current diagram is shown in fig. ! as before, resulting in a new residual concentration
for the chamber described in section 3. n[. After the next pulse the initial concentration
In a pulsed field it is convenient to measure the n~ = no +n;~ exists and so forth (fig. 2). Thus the initial
charge instead of the current; the charge per radiation concentration has a higher value from pulse to pulse
pulse is given by: until its increment is balanced o u t by the increasing
recombination. In this way a "switching-on process"
Q = I(t)dt = eg o In l + - ~ y q t p , (21) develops which depends on the dose rate and the
voltage.
or
The saturation curve is obtained by integration of
the current as in eq. (25) at the end of this switching-on
Q= CUln(1 + D), (22) process. With increasing voltage the current pulses
become shorter because t L ~ I / U . At voltage Uo,
where t L = t w , the situation described in sect. 2.3.2 is
with the abbreviations obtained.

C = 2eVok 1 , and D = ~q tp G. (23) 2.3.4. Single radiation pulse

G 2k During a short single radiation pulse, the length to
of which is shorter or comparable with the ion transit
As a saturation value for very high voltage we obtain
time tL, a concentration equilibrium in the chamber
Qs = e 1%q tp, or Qs = CD. (24)

2.3.3. P u l s e d radiation field; high pulse f r e q u e n c y

In the following the assumption is dropped that the 0 n n
"~.~ 0
~_ nlo
repetition time t w of two pulses is longer than the
maximum transit time of the ions in the chamber. Thus ~Oo
g
the next radiation pulse produces ions before the old t3 :....
j , ]
oi i ,
I
'
!
,
I
l ~L I • r_ _ L _ J
ion cloud has been removed. The distribution of the l
l l I--[~ ] T
~nn L- i --- J
space charge in the chamber is no longer as simple as ¢) R : n~ |n~
--, i i ,t , iJ ,
in sect. 2.3.2; it is now a superposition of two or more tw tL 2t w tL*tw 3tw 2tw*t Z,tw
t,m¢
such concentration distributions, and ions of various
generations may recombine with each other. Fig. 2. Ion concentrations in a-pulsed radiation field, tL>tw.
In order to simplify the situation the assumption is
made that the residual charge still existing in the cham-
ber when the next pulse arrives is uniformly distributed
over the whole volume. The error made is certainly
negligible as long as tL>>tw; it becomes, however,
noticeable when t L and tw are nearly equal (see section
I[ o 2
°" I
3.3).
The residual charge at time tw is

QR = ;"w
l(t)dt = e Vo In (:)
+½en°tL
+½c~notw
, (25)
time
I
td
,,-
td÷t L

with no qtp.
=
Fig. 3. Time distribution of the ion concentration for a single
If this charge is distributed over the whole chamber radiation pulse of the length ta.
 CURRENT OF A N I O N I Z A T I O N CHAMBER 117

cannot be achieved. The measured charge Qa is the ionization chamber filled with 5 1 of argon. The ioniza-
integral of a current distribution as, for instance, in tion current was determined with a current integrator.
fig. 3:
3.1. CONTINUOUS RADIATION FIELD
Qd = f O dq-/L I(t)dt The chamber was exposed to a 6°Co source (activity
2 Ci) at exposure rates of 0.6, 1, 2 and 4 R/h. For each
dose rate the pressure was changed between 2 and
= eVo7 nl(t)dt + nz(t)dt . (27) 50 arm and the high voltage was varied between 0 and
,,I td
3 kV.
Here n l (t) is the concentration given by eq. (2), and A typical saturation curve is shown in fig. 4. In
n2(t) has the form as in eq. (20), where now no = n l (td) addition to the measured data, the curve calculated by
(see fig. 3). eq. (15) has been indicated; no fitting parameter is
The integration yields: used.
The ratios of calculated to measured saturation
Qd = Ql q-Q2,
current show a weak pressure dependence which is,

[-2--w--w
Q!L = eVof~{21n W--Iexp(--TWtd)+W+I~+
2wJ
however, not signifcant within the errors. The average
deviation amounts to approximately 10%.
The agreement between measurements and theo-
retical curves in the recombination region is best judged
+ ( u , - 1)Ttd}, (28)
by normalizing saturation values. To show the devi-
ations from the measurements, we plotted in fig. 5 the
Q:! = e Vo 271n(1 +½~no tL), calculated normalized current (I/Is)oa~c at a voltage
giving the value (I/Is)e,,p=0.5 in the experiment.
Deviations increasing above the value 0.5 can be seen
no = n(td), from eq. (2), and w = (1 +4~qt~) ~. at higher pressures, especially for higher irradiations.
The charge at saturation is The experimental current is lower than the calculated
one, presumably indicating that the volume effect is
Qds = e V0 q td. (29) no longer the dominating mechanism of recombination.
The average deviations in the overall measuring range
Now the measured fraction of the actually produced
up to 50 atm and up to 4 R/h are about 20% .
charge, Qa/Qds, can be calculated.

3. Comparison of the calculation with the experiment 0.6

Measurements were carried out with a cylindrical

0.5 '-~t~ }----}- } }" 0.6R/h
oz
0.6"
0.5 ,.oR/.
d O.t

y
-XI0-BA 4,
o

t to 0.6"
i,--I
I-=4 05 -2.0R/h

~0.5
T 0.6"
05 -/-,.0R/h
04
"E:
/
0.3
o
0.2
0.1
L f I / r
I i I ] i
10 20 30 t,O 50atm
1
Voltage
2
=
3kV Pressure =
Fig. 5. C o n t i n u o u s r a d i a t i o n field. N o r m a l i z e d c urre nt (Uls)eale
Fig. 4. C o n t i n u o u s r a d i a t i o n field, s a t u r a t i o n curve. The points at a voltage giving the value (I/Is)exp= 0.5, as a function of the
represent the m e a s u r e m e n t s at 8 a t m a n d 2 R/h. The solid line pressure. The error bars of the theoretical points reflect the
was derived from eq. (15). e x p e r i m e n t a l errors.
118 H. DINTER AND K. TESCH

3.2. PULSED RADIATIONFIELD; LOW PULSE FREQUENCY 0.8 Hz and 1 Rad/h is plotted in fig. 6. In addition the
The m e a s u r e m e n t s were carried out with a linear curve calculated without a fitting parameter by
accelerator; the radiation source was the scattered eq. (22) is shown. For all measurements where satur-
radiation of 350-MeV electrons. The pulse frequency ation was achieved up to 3 kV the agreement between
was varied between 5 0 H z a n d 0.8 Hz; the pulse calculated and experimental saturation values is better
d u r a t i o n was 2 #s. The ionization c h a m b e r was filled than 10%.
with l0 atm argon.
The average dose rate was determined by phosphate 3.3. PULSED RADIATIONFIELD; HIGH PULSE FREQUENCY
glass dosimetry. Several glasses were fixed a r o u n d the According to section 2.3.3 those measurements are
c h a m b e r ; they were s u r r o u n d e d by 0.8 m m Cd, in considered n o w where the ion transit time is longer t h a n
order to achieve a response curve similar to that of the the time .between two accelerator pulses.
chamber, a n d in order to absorb thermal neutrons. I n fig. 7 three normalized measurements are shown
The glasses were calibrated with 6°Co in exposure together with the corresponding calculations. A rela-
units. I n the linac radiation field n o radiation equili- tively good agreement can be seen for 50 Hz a n d
b r i u m is obtained, a n d we use absorbed dose units 12.5 Hz ( m a x i m u m deviation 20%), while at 6 Hz
p u t t i n g approximately 1 R -- 1 Rad. Despite the various discrepancies up to 30% occur. I n fig. 8 the agreement
systematic errors with which this m e t h o d is affected, in the r e c o m b i n a t i o n range is shown. Here also the
the agreement with the calibration of the saturation greatest deviations are f o u n d in measurements 3 a n d 7,
current at the 6°Co source is better t h a n 20%.
As a n example the saturation curve for the case

t 1,0
-x10-SAs
l(O/Qs)catc

0.7
Nr. Freq. ~)
Rad/h
50 55

0,5 ±{ ~_ 125
6 0.5
10
08 006
& 50 IOO

~0.5 0.3 {t 125

6
08
23
13
I0
08 B0
ill
t-,

Number of the measurement--=.--

J I I I I I I I I ] I I I I I
1 2 3 kV Fig. 8. Pulsed radiation field. Normalized charge (Q/Qs)ea]e
Voltage = at a voltage giving the value (Q/Qs)exp= 0.5 for several mea-
surements. The error bars of the theoretical points reflect the
Fig. 6. Pulsed radiation field, saturation curve at low pulse experimental errors.
frequency. The points represent the measurements at 10 atm,
1 Rad/h and 0.8 Hz. The solid line was derived from eq. (22).
5 _ xlO-aA / / / / ~ t .

. . E
t3
o I- o //-'" / ..... A 12.5Hz, 1 Rad/h
~r. // "
,, / ~ ,. I -/ - -.S0H~,S.SR~d/h
g2
n~
.N
C
_9 1

i .... , I ~ I I
/,
I I
6
(averaged} dose rate
I
B
=.
I I J
l0 Rad/h

1 2 3kV
Voltaqe
Fig. 9. Ionization current as a function of dose rate for con-
Fig. 7. Pulsed radiation field, saturation curve at high pulse tinuous and pulsed radiation (for the latter average values of
frequency. The solid line was calculated as described in section current and dose rate are taken), at 1.8 kV and 10 atm. The
2.3.3. curves were calculated from eqs (14) and (21).
 CURRENT OF AN IONIZATION CHAMBER
both made at 6 Hz. (The error bars include inaccuracies
of' dose definition and of intensity instabilities, together
+_ 15%.) The reason for this was discussed in section
2.3.3. Assuming an equal distribution of the residual
charge over the total chamber volume the error
becomes particularly large if ions are nearly removed
before the next pulse follows, i.e. te > tw. This is the case
at 6 Hz.
4. Conclusions
We now compare the results found for the continuous
fie,ld with the results for the case of a pulsed field using
time-averaged values for ionization currents and dose
rates.
In fig. 9 all measuring points up to 10 Rad/h and the
theoretical curves [(eq. (14) and the mean value of
eq. (21)] are plotted for both fields. As expected, both
curves are identical for low dose rates, they form a
straight line because of complete saturation. The mea-
suring points confirm this statement. At higher dose
rates both curves deviate from each other owing to the
different degree of saturation.
We find that the current in an ionization chamber in
a continuous and in a pulsed field at equal average dose
rate differs much less than should be expected from the
119
high instantaneous dose rate during the pulse. In prac-
tice it will be sufficient to check the calculation of the
saturation curve for pulsed-field operation with mea-
surements performed in the field of a radioactive
source.
Regarding the agreement between calculation and
measurement we can summarize: when the chamber
works in the saturation region, agreement for the two
radiation fields is better than 20% for pressures be-
tween 4 and 50 atm, pulse frequencies between 1 and
50 Hz and (average) dose rates up to about 5 Rad/h.
In the recombination region the agreement for
continuous fields is also better than 20%. In pulsed
fields only an agreement better than 30% is found,
except when the time between two pulses was nearly
equal to the maximum transit time of the ions.
References
1) j. w. Boag, Radiation dosimetry (Vol. 2, ed. Attix; J. Wiley,
New York, London 1966); A.v. Engel, lonizedgases (Oxford,
1955); K. K. Aglinzew, Dasimetrie ionisierender Strahlen
(Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1961).
2) L. B. Loeb, The recombination of ions, I~andbuch der Physik
X X ! (ed. S. Flfigge; Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1956).
3) E. Storm and H. I. Israel, LA-3753 (Los Alamos, 1967).
4) R. E. Ellis and L. R. Read, Phys. Med. Biol. 14 (1969) 293,
411.