BIPM technical services: Radiation Dosimetry

The BIPM services for radiation dosimetry are the foundation of measurements world-wide, enabling patients to have confidence in radiotherapy and medical imaging procedures, and radiation workers to have confidence in their safety.

The BIPM holds a set of high-accuracy primary standard instruments which set the international reference value - in effect, the world standard.

Comparison and calibration services are available for air kerma and absorbed dose to water for a carefully chosen set of energies of photon radiation, so that metrology institutes can validate their primary standards via comparisons, or obtain traceability to the SI via calibrations over a wide energy range.

The BIPM maintains primary standards for the determination of the quantity air kerma in x-ray beams with generating potentials in the range from 10 kV to 250 kV and in ¹³⁷Cs and ⁶⁰Co gamma-ray beams.

The BIPM maintains primary standards for the determination of the quantity absorbed dose to water in x-ray beams with generating potentials in the range from 100 kV to 250 kV , in a ⁶⁰Co gamma-ray beam and in high energy x-ray beams in the range from 6 MV to 18 MV.

Comparisons of national primary standards are available for a series of reference radiation qualities covering diagnostic and therapy radiation beams. Calibrations of national secondary standards are made at the same radiation qualities.

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