Anno 2024-25

The program of this course includes an initial part describing the interaction of photons, heavy charged particles, electrons, and neutrons with matter is described. Example of relevance in medical physics are provided, with particular reference to the deposition of energy in biological matter.
The second part concerns the quantities for the description of the radiation fields and their interaction: flux, fluence, kerma, exposure and absorbed dose; attenuation, transfer and absorption coefficients for photons and kerma factors for neutrons.
The concepts learned are then deepened in the explanation of clinical dosimetry in nuclear medicine (diagnostics and therapy with radiopharmaceuticals) and of the treatment plan for radiotherapy with external beams.
Finally, the study of cavity theory for small (Bragg-Gray), intermediate (Spencer) and large (Burlin) cavities is introduced, as well as the problems related to radiation equilibrium and coupling of dosimetric materials.
The program includes basics of microdosimetry with the introduction of the concepts of linear energy and specific energy and their distributions with reference to biological sites.