Flexible Cotton Fabric-Based Ionizing Radiation Dosimeter for 2D Dose Distribution Measurements over a Wide Dose Range at High Dose Rates

This work presents an ecological, flexible 2D radiochromic dosimeter for measuring ionizing radiation in the kilogray dose range. Cotton woven fabric made of cellulose was volume-modified with nitrotetrazolium blue chloride as a radiation-sensitive compound. Its features include a color change during exposure from yellowish to purple-brown and flexibility that allows it to adapt to various shapes. It was found that (i) the dose response is up to ~80 kGy, (ii) it is independent of the dose rate for 1.1-73.1 kGy/min, (iii) it can be measured in 2D using a flatbed scanner, (iv) the acquired images can be filtered using a mean filter, which improves its dose resolution, (v) the dose resolution is -0.07 to -0.4 kGy for ~0.6 to ~75.7 kGy for filtered images, and (vi) two linear dose subranges can be distinguished: ~0.6 to ~7.6 kGy and ~9.9 to ~62.0 kGy. The dosimeter combined with flatbed scanner reading and data processing using dedicated software packages constitutes a comprehensive system for measuring dose distributions for objects with complex shapes.