Study of the absorbed dose rate of all rays emitted from the 252Cf brachytherapy source by the Monte Carlo method

The 252Cf brachytherapy source is a spontaneous fission decay source, which is used as a neutron-emitting source. In addition to neutrons emitted from this source, gamma rays are also emitted with the average energy of 1 MeV. In this study, using the Monte Carlo N-Particle code (MCNPX), the absorbed dose rates of the neutrons, the primary gamma and the secondary gamma that generated by thermal neutron capture in the hydrogen of the water were calculated at different distances from the source in the water phantom. Also, the equivalent dose rates of the total, the neutrons, and the gammas were obtained at different intervals from the source. The results indicate that gamma rays from this source can provide significant energy at distances close to the source, so the contribution of these rays to total absorption doses should be calculated. The neutron dose rate and total gamma decrease with increasing distance from the source and at the distances close to the source are deposited the most energy. The equivalent dose of neutrons at distances close to the source (lower than 2cm) with differences to gamma rays has the highest effect at the equivalent total dose. So, the values at the distances of 0.5 to 2.0 cm from the source reach the value of 46.30 cSv/h.µg to 2.95 cSv/h.µg, while the equivalent dose rate of gamma at distances of 0.5 to 2.0 cm from the source is 4.30 cSv/h.µg to 0.272 cSv/h.µg.