Improvement of light stability of DHR123 radio fluorogenic nano clay gel dosimeter by incorporating a new dispersant

[Display omitted] •Light stability imparted to radio fluorogenic nano clay gel dosimeter.•Dispersion leads to increased light stability and ionizing radiation sensitivity.•Measuring the dose of the order of 0.1 Gy is demonstrated. A tissue-equivalent three-dimensional dosimeter is being developed to verify dose distributions for radiotherapy. Recently, we have reported a nanocomposite fluorescent gel (NC-RFG) dosimeter that enables readout by the fluorometry, which is more sensitive than absorption method in principle. However, irradiating by an excitation light for a dose information readout also produces fluorescent dyes and is not negligible in the low-dose irradiation range under 1 Gy. In this study, we investigate new additives to improve the NC-RFG’s light stability. We successfully suppressed the light-sensitive property of the NC-RFG to at least 10% of normal conditions by adding either N-vinylpyrrolidone or pyridine as a new dispersant that is presumed to break up aggregation of rhodamine 123 (RD123) and dihydrorhodamine 123 (DHR123) to stop photoexcited RD123 from oxidizing the adjacent DHR123. We also provide a detailed study of sensitivity characteristics such as dose rate dependence for fluorescent gel dosimeters.