Investigation of gamma-ray attenuation parameters of some materials used in dental applications

Radiological parameters of composite filler, zirconium and acrylic coating materials used in dental treatment are determined. Mass attenuation coefficients (mu(m)) of these materials have been experimentally determined for 9 different gamma energies emitting from Ra-226 and Eu-152 radioactive sources by using gamma spectrometry system with (3 '' x 3 '') NaI(Tl) detector. Effective atomic and electron numbers (Z(eff), N-eff), atomic and electronic cross sections (sigma(t,a) and sigma(t,el)) have been also obtained for these materials. The obtained results were compared with the NIST database and EGSnrc Monte Carlo (MC) code. It is found that general trends of these parameters are consistent with the literature. The maximum attenuation occurs at 122 keV and it has been found for 1 mm thick samples that 21%, 10% and 2% of the incident radiation have been absorbed by the zirconium, composite and acrylic samples, respectively.