Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 58, No. 6, June 2011, pp.

16881696

An Overall Stem Effect, including Stem Leakage and Stem Scatter, for a
TM30013 Farmer-type Chamber
Dae Cheol Kweon
Department of Radiologic Science, Shin Heung College University, Uijeongbu 480-701, Korea

Jae-Seung Lee
Department of Radiation Oncology, Good Samaritan Hospital, Pohang 791-704, Korea and
Department of Physics, Soonchunhyang University, Asan 336-745, Korea

Eun-Hoe Goo
Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul 110-744, Korea and
Department of Physics, Soonchunhyang University, Asan 336-745, Korea

Moon-Jib Kim
Department of Physics, Soonchunhyang University, Asan 336-745, Korea

Jae-Eun Jung
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sahm Yook Seoul Medical Center, Seoul 130-711, Korea

Kyung-Rae Dong
Department of Radiological Technology, Gwangju Health College University, Gwangju 501-701, Korea and
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju 501-759, Korea

Woon-Kwan Chung
Department of Nuclear Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju 501-759, Korea

In-Chul Im and Yun-Sik Yu

Department of Radiological Science, Dongeui University, Busan 614-714, Korea
(Received 21 March 2011, in final form 9 May 2011)
The stem effect is a leakage current generated when the chamber stem is included in the radiation
field size. Such an effect can be divided into stem leakage and stem scatter. When a chamber is
calibrated in air, the chamber response is likely to be affected by the photons scattered from the
chamber stem. These interactions contribute to the apparent measured exposure. We calculated the
overall stem effect correction factor that was caused by the metal stem of the ionization chamber.
We measured the stem effect of a Farmer-type ionization chamber that had recently been in use for
exposure dose measurements. In addition, we calculated and compared the ratios of stem leakage
and stem scatter to the overall stem effect. We measured an overall stem effect, including the
stem leakage and the scatter of PTW model TM 30013 (vented to air, sensitive volume 0.6 cm3 )
Farmer chamber, in the exposure measurement. We measured the dependences of the stem scatter
(ksem.scatter ) and the stem leakage (ksem.leak ) on the length of chamber stem exposure when measuring
the exposure dose of high-energy X-rays generated by a linear accelerator (LINAC). Electrons
ejected from the metal stem were collected by the central electrode, increased to a maximum and
then decreased. Most of the overall stem effect was caused by stem scatter and was determined to
within 4% according to the length of the stem exposed in repeated measurements of with various
radiation fields.
PACS numbers: 87.53.-j, 87.58.Sp, 87.59.Bh
Keywords: Stem leakage, Stem scatter, Stem effect, Exposure dose, Ionization chamber, Exposure measurement
DOI: 10.3938/jkps.58.1688

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An Overall Stem Effect, including Stem Leakage and Stem Scatter Dae Cheol Kweon et al.

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Table 1. Physical characteristics of the Farmer-type ionization chamber used in this study.

Chamber
modela)
TM30013

Dimension of sensitive volume

Radius
(mm)
3.05

Length
(mm)
26.0

Volumne
(cm3 )
0.600

Wall thickness
PMMA
(g/cm3 )
1.19

Graphite
(g/cm3 )
1.85

Stem materials
(Purity of Al, %)
Chamber
Dummy
stem
stem
99.98
99.28

Length of stem
(mm)b)
107.7

a)
b)

Vented to air, waterproof, fully-guarded chamber.

This, except for the external diameter of the sensitive volume, is defined as the total ionization chamber length.

I. INTRODUCTION

The ionization chamber was commercialized for the

purpose of measuring high-energy radiation doses in radiation therapy. Such ionization chambers have recently
been designed to improve spatial resolution by reducing the energy dependency and the sensitive volume
and to ensure both convenience in the structure and
the handling of the chamber and stability in the electrical characteristics [1,2]. The International Commission
on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) has recommended an overall accuracy in tumor dose delivery
of around 5% [3,4], and the American Association of
Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) has reported that the
overall uncertainty of the prescription dose delivered to
a certain reference point is approximately 5.6% [5]. The
analysis shows that an ionization chamber suitable for
calibrating radiation therapy beams and provided with
a 60 Co exposure calibration factor from the Accredited
Dose Calibration Laboratory (ADCL) has a cumulative
uncertainty of approximately 1.6% [5,6]. The cumulative uncertainty of an ionization chamber includes the
ion recombination loss, the spatial resolution, the polarity effect, and the stem effect [710].
The generally referred to stem effect can cause electron scattering in the chamber stem, which results in a
different type of leakage current [11,12]. The stem effect
can be divided into stem leakage and stem scatter. Stem
leakage arises as a consequence of direct irradiation of
the chamber volume, as well as the insulators and the
cables in the chamber. Stem scatter arises from the effect of scattered radiation in the stem that reaches the
sensitive volume [11]. These interactions contribute to
the apparent measured exposure [13].
Typically, the calibration of the ionization chamber is
performed with a fixed field that may cover the entire
stem or only a small portion of the stem in a geometrically defined field border. However, the clinical measurement is conducted with the chamber stem included
in a range that is different from the range for calibration
and with a field that is different from the one used for
E-mail:

jslee0313@gmail.com; Fax: +82-54-245-6529

the calibration [14]. In this case, due to radiation interaction, electrons ejected from air near the chamber end,
from the dielectric in the metal stem or from the cable
can reach the central electrode, generating the stem effect, which reduces charges [1416]. Such a stem effect
depends on the length of the chamber stem in the field
border. Thus, a correction will be necessary whenever
the length of the exposed stem differs from that at the
time of the chamber calibration [15].
Therefore, this study intends to calculate the stem effect correction factor (Psem ). This factor is the result,
which is shown in different forms, of a leakage current
that is frequently inevitable in the measurement of exposure doses of high-energy photon beams. We measured the dependences of stem leakage (ksem.leak ) and
the stem scatter (ksem.scatter ) on the length of the chamber stem exposure when measuring the exposure dose of
high-energy X-rays generated by using a linear accelerator (LINAC), and we calculated the overall stem effect
correction factor that was caused by the metal stem of
the ionization chamber. In addition, we calculated and
compared the ratios of the stem leakage and the stem
scatter to the overall stem effect.

II. MATERIALS AND METHODS

1. Measuring Equipment

In order to measure the stem effect, we utilized a

Farmer-type ionization chamber (TM 30013, PTW, Germany) that had a sensitive volume of 0.6 cm3 , which is
commonly used for the measurement of exposure dose.
Table 1 shows the detailed specifications of the ionization
chamber used for the measurement. Acrylic build-up
caps are used with ionization chambers for in air measurements in high-energy photon beams when charged
particle equilibrium (CPE) is desired. In this case, the
used build-up caps were 1.5 and 2.5 cm for the 6- and
the 10-MV X-ray beams, respectively.
The electrometer (UNIDOS, PTW, Germany) has an
operative voltage of 400 V with a calibration factor
(Pelec ) of 1.00 0.5%. According to the international

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Fig. 1. (Color online) PTW model TM 30013 (vented

sensitive volume of 0.6 cm3 ) Farmer-type ionization chamber used in the measurement, dummy stem manufactured to
measure the stem scatter, and structural drawing. The materials for the chamber stem and the dummy stem are 99.98
percent and 99.28 percent pure aluminums. The dimensions
are given in mm.

calibration protocol [17,18], the ionization chambers, the

electrometer, and the cables were calibrated to have uncertainties of less than 1% by using second standard
calibration laboratories.
Figure 1 shows the PTW model TM 30013 ionization
chamber (vented sensitive volume of 0.6 cm3 ) and the
dummy stem for measurement of stem scatter in this
study. A dummy stem was used for the computer numerical control (CNC) automatic lathe machine (MS26,
CHRONOMICS, Switzerland) to manufacture an aluminum stick with a diameter of 20 mm by precision machining. The allowable error in the manufacturing process was less than 0.1 mm while the material for the
dummy stem was aluminum with a purity of 99.28%.

2. Measurement Methods

Figure 2 shows the geometric arrangement used for

measuring the exposure dose with an ionization chamber. The distance from the radiation source to the center
axis of the sensitive volume was set at 100 cm. Highdensity styrofoam was placed and kept at a distance of
20 cm from the couch to make sure that no other materials that scattered radiation, excluding air, existed in
the vicinity of the ionization chamber. To ensure the
accuracy of measurement, we repeated the measurement
of the exposure dose in 100 MU (monitor unit), which is
the mechanical dose unit of linear accelerator, 10 times
for each field before calculating the average, standard
deviation and uncertainty type A of the repeated measurements.

Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 58, No. 6, June 2011

Fig. 2. Geometric arrangement used for measuring the

exposure dose with an ionization chamber.

the calibration after the measurement of the radiation

dose by using the calibrated ionization chamber, if the
measurement had been conducted in a different direction from the exposure direction, the sensitivity of the
ionization chamber differed according to the direction of
the radiation. In this case, the effect of the orientation
of the ionization chamber should be measured [19,20].
The direction dependency of the ionization chamber is
defined as the ratio of the response function of the ionization chamber direction, which is rotated by 90(, to the
calibrated direction of the ionization chamber when the
field size is 10 10 cm2 .
B. Dependency of chamber materials

The calibration of the stem scatter is done by putting

the dummy stem, which had the same physical characteristics as those of the chamber stem, in the opposition
direction to the sensitive volume. In this study, we used
aluminum with a purity of 99.98% as the chamber stem
and with a purity of 99.28% as the dummy stem (Table 1). Therefore, in order to measure the effect of the
stem material, we manufactured aluminum plates that
had aluminum purities of 99.98% and 99.28% and size of
150 150 1 mm3 . We propped up the manufactured
aluminum plates with high-density Styrofoam to place
them on the ionization chamber and conducted the measurement at a field size of 10 10 cm2 . The dependency
on the stem material was defined as the ratio of the response function of the aluminum plate with a purity of
99.28% to that of the aluminum plate with a purity of
99.98%.
4. Measurement of the Stem Leakage and Scat-

3. Parameters Measured in this Study

A. Dependency of chamber orientation

The calibration of the stem leakage was done by turning around the ionization chamber or the collimator. In

ter
A. Measurement of the stem leakage

Figure 3(a) shows the stem leakage measurement

method used in the experiment. Since dose decreases

An Overall Stem Effect, including Stem Leakage and Stem Scatter Dae Cheol Kweon et al.

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rapidly at the edge of beam, it is recommended to include

approximately 10% of the stem for measurement of the
high-energy X-rays emitted by a linear accelerator [14].
Therefore, we set the length of the Y direction (Yjaw ) at
around 5 cm, and we increased the size of the rectangular field (Xjaw Yjaw ) by 2 cm from 5 5 cm2 to 33
5 cm2 to ensure that the stem exposure increased by 1
cm. The first measurement measured ionization currents
that did not include the chamber stem in position (1) of
Fig. 3(a). The values from the first measurement provided fundamental responses to the sensitive volume of
the ionization chamber. The second measurement measured the dependence of the stem effect on the length of
the stem exposed as the field of the X direction (Xjaw )
was increased at a constant interval at position (2) of
Fig. 3(a) and the ionization chamber was rotated by 90
degrees. The values from the second measurement provided the contributions to the stem effect for various the
lengths of the stem exposure.

B. Measurement of the stem scatter

Figure 3(b) shows the stem scatter measurement

method used in the experiment. Ma and Nahum [21] conducted a study on the stem effect correction factor for
a medium-energy X-ray beam by using a Monte Carlo
calculation. They reported that the stem scatter was
the highest when the dummy stem was placed in a direction opposite to the sensitive volume [21,22]. In order to
measure the stem scatter of the ionization chamber, we
increased the size of the square field (Xjaw Yjaw ) by 2
2 cm2 from 5 5 cm2 to 33 33 cm2 to make sure that
the stem exposure increased by 1 cm. We conducted the
first measurement after placing the dummy stem in a direction opposite to the sensitive volume of the ionization
chamber and the second measurement after removing the
dummy stem.

Fig. 3. (Color online) Geometry of the stem leakage and

the stem scatter determination. (a) The measurements of the
stem leakage were made with the chamber oriented in each
of two positions as shown in the figure. (b) The influence of
the stem was determined experimentally by using a dummy
stem placed on top of the ionization chamber in a position
opposite the original stem.

Therefore, the stem leakage correction factor (kstem.leak )

can be determined as follows:
kstem.leak =

Istem (Istem Istemless )

Istemless
=
. (1)
Istem
Istem

B. Analysis of the stem scatter

5. Analysis of the Overall Stem Effect Correction Factor
A. Analysis of the stem leakage

In the stem leakage correction factor (kstem.leak ), if the

value measured by the electrometer in position (1) of
Fig. 3(a) is the ionization current Istemless that does not
contain the chamber stem and if the values measured
by the electrometer in position (2) of Fig. 3(a) are the
ionization currents Istem for various the lengths of the
stem exposed, the following can be defined:
Istem Istemless : Ionization currents due to electrons
ejected from the chamber stem, Istem (Istem Istemless ):
Ionization currents due to collective electrons from the
sensitive volume where the chamber stem is excluded.

It is ideal to collect only the electric charges that are

generated in the sensitive volume of the ionization chamber. However, when photons are beamed to the ionization chamber, the stem linked to the sensitive volume
is exposed while the ionization current increases due to
photons scattered in the stem. When the chamber stem
contributes to scattered rays, it is called stem scatter.
Therefore, when Ids is the ionization current measured
after arranging the dummy stem in a direction opposite
to the ionization chamber and I is the ionization current
measured after removing the dummy stem, the ionization
currents can be defined as follows:
Ids I: ionization current caused by the chamber stem,
and I (Ids I): ionization current generated in the sensitive volume, excluding the chamber stem. Therefore,

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 58, No. 6, June 2011

the stem scatter correction factor (kstem.scatter ) can be

determined as follows:
I (Ids I)
2I Ids
=
.
I
I

kstem.scatter =

(2)

Table 2. Chamber orientation and stem material dependencies, with their estimated relative uncertainties, for the
TM 30013 ionization chamber measured for 6- and 10-MV
X-rays.
Values

C. Analysis of the stem effect correction factors (Pstem )

The stem effect is the leakage current generated when

the chamber stem is included in the radiation field size.
Such an effect can be divided into stem leakage and stem
scatter [11]. Therefore, the overall stem effect in the measurement of a high-energy photon beam by using an ionization chamber is equal to the stem leakage multiplied
by the stem scatter. When the stem leakage was and
kstem.leak the stem scatter was kstem.scatter in the measurement above, the overall stem effect correction factor
(Pstem ) was determined as below:
Pstem = kstem.leak kstem.scatter .

(3)

In addition, when the ratios of the stem leakage and the

stem scatter to the overall stem effect were kstem.leak and
kstem.scatter , respectively, such ratios were determined as
follows:
kstem.leak
100(%)
Pstem

(4)

kstem.scatter
100(%).
Pstem

(5)

Rstem.leak =
kstem.scatter =

III. RESULTS
We used the PTW model TM 30013 (vented sensitive
volume of 0.6 cm3 ) Farmer-type chamber for high-energy
X-rays emitted from a LINAC with a view to calculating
the dependence of the overall stem effect correction factor of the ionization chamber on the length of the stem
exposed in the exposure measurement. The results are
as follows:

1. Effect of Chamber Orientation and Stem Materials

Table 2 shows the dependency that the ionization

chamber has on measurement direction in the stem leakage measurement and the dependency that the chamber
stem and the dummy stem have on material in the stem
scatter measurement. When the field size was 10 10
cm2 , we conducted the measurement of a 100-MU exposure dose, repeating it ten times, in the calibrated direction of the ionization chamber and in the exposure direction with the ionization chamber was rotated by 90 .
The measurement result was less than 0.02%, which was

Orientation dependency (%)

100 relative uncertaintya)
Stem material dependency (%)
100 relative uncertainty

TM30013
6 MV
10 MV
0.0101
0.0179
0.0244
0.0207
0.0271
0.0397
0.0248
0.0298

a)

Represents the relative standard uncertainty estimated by

using statistical methods, type A.

very small enough to state that the direction dependency

of the ionization chamber could be ignored in the stem
leakage measurement. In addition, when we used aluminum plates with purities of 99.98% and 99.28% and
sizes of 150 150 1 mm3 , the dependency that the
chamber stem and the dummy stem had on material was
less than 0.04% under all types of experiment conditions.
This means that the dependency on the quality of the
stem material was small enough to be disregarded in the
stem scatter measurement.

2. Stem Leakage of Ionization Chamber

Table 3 shows the stem leakage correction factors

(kstem.leak ) versus the length of stem exposed to 6-MV
and 10-MV X-rays for a PTW model TM 30013 Farmertype chamber. We calculated the uncertainty for the
stem leakage correction factor (kstem.leak ) and the repeated measurement based on the ionization currents
that were measured in position (1) and position (2) of
Fig. 3(a) by using the method of the recommended stem
leakage measurement and Eq. (1). The exposure dose in
the small field (the length of the stem exposure was 2 cm
or less) that included only the sensitive volume of the ionization chamber was the result of the primary radiation
beam that penetrated through the air, in effect, without
any interaction. In this case, the stem leakage correction factor (kstem.leak ) was less than 0.04%, which was
small enough to be ignored. However, with increasing in
the length of the stem exposure, the stem leakage correction factor (kstem.leak ) increased gradually and reached a
maximum value in the middle part of the chamber stem
(the length of the stem exposure was 5 cm or less) before decreasing on an irregular basis. The measurement
results showed that when 6-MV X-rays were used, 0.04
0.33% of the electrons emitted from the metal stem
reached the center electrode, making a contribution to
exposure dose. When 10-MV X-rays were used, 0.03
0.32% of such electrons reached the center electrode. The

An Overall Stem Effect, including Stem Leakage and Stem Scatter Dae Cheol Kweon et al.

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Table 3. Stem leakage correction factors (kstem.leak ) determined for various lengths of the stem exposed to 6- and
10-MV X-ray in the PTW model TM30013 (vented sensitive
volume of 0.6 cm3 ) Farmer-type ionization chamber.

Table 4. Stem scatter correction factors (kstem.scatter ) determined for various lengths of the stem exposed to 6- and
10-MV X-ray in the PTW model TM30013 (vented sensitive
volume of 0.6 cm3 ) Farmer-type ionization chamber.

6 MV
Length of stem
b)
a) Relative
exposed (cm) kstem.leak
uncertainty
1
1.0004
0.0335
2
0.9998
0.0306
3
0.9979
0.0300
4
0.9965
0.0221
5
0.9967
0.0327
6
0.9980
0.0314
7
0.9991
0.0291
8
0.9995
0.0335
9
0.9989
0.0258
10
0.9995
0.0298
11
0.9991
0.0277
12
0.9993
0.0249
13
0.9997
0.0233
14
0.9993
0.0180
15
0.9994
0.0340

Length of
6 MV
10 MV
stem
exposed
Relativeb)
Relative
kstem.scatter
kstem.scatter a)
(cm)
uncertainty
uncertainty
1
0.9752
0.0260
0.9712
0.0340
2
0.9734
0.0394
0.9689
0.0300
3
0.9724
0.0298
0.9684
0.0267
4
0.9695
0.0267
0.9660
0.0394
5
0.9684
0.0327
0.9655
0.0260
6
0.9664
0.0327
0.9630
0.0260
7
0.9680
0.0298
0.9637
0.0340
8
0.9688
0.0340
0.9662
0.0416
9
0.9690
0.0307
0.9677
0.0333
10
0.9689
0.0153
0.9684
0.0277
11
0.9696
0.0300
0.9690
0.0267
12
0.9723
0.0300
0.9690
0.0267
13
0.9723
0.0300
0.9719
0.0249
14
0.9739
0.0300
0.9737
0.0277
15
0.9742
0.0269
0.9736
0.0359

10 MV
Relative
kstem.leak
uncertainty
1.0003
0.0269
0.9997
0.0371
0.9982
0.0291
0.9964
0.0267
0.9968
0.0214
0.9980
0.0482
0.9989
0.0277
0.9992
0.0249
0.9989
0.0277
0.9992
0.0258
0.9989
0.0359
0.9995
0.0249
0.9995
0.0291
0.9992
0.0348
0.9993
0.0298

a)

The stem leakage correction factors.

Expressed as 100 relative uncertainty. Represents the
relative standard uncertainty estimated by using statistical
methods, type A.
b)

average uncertainty was 2.55 102 % for the measurement repeated for ten times with the same measurement
method.

3. Stem Scatter of Ionization Chamber

In a square field where the length of the stem exposure was increased by 1 cm, we measured the ionization
current after placing the dummy stem in a direction opposite to the sensitive volume of the ionization chamber
and to the ionization current after removing the dummy
stem. Based on measured values of the ionization current
and Eq. (2), we calculated the uncertainty for the stem
scatter correction factor (kstem.scatter ) and the repeated
measurements. Table 4 show the relation of the stem
scatter correction factor (kstem.scatter ) to the length of
stem exposure when 6-MV and 10-MV X-rays were used
for the Farmer-type chamber of TM 30013 in a PTW
model. Unlike the case with stem leakage, as soon as the
beam reached the chamber stem, 2.48% and 2.88% of
the stem scatter took place in the metal stem for 6- and
10-MV X-rays, respectively. The stem scatter increased
gradually with increasing length of stem exposure before
reaching maximum values of 3.36% for 6-MV X-rays and

a)

The stem scatters correction factors.

Expressed as 100 relative uncertainty. Represents the
relative standard uncertainty estimated by using statistical
methods, type A.
b)

3.70% for the 10-MV X-rays in the middle part of the

chamber stem (the length of stem exposure was 6 cm
or less). The results showed a significant increase when
10-MV X-rays were used. The stem scatter decreased
irregularly after the middle part of the metal stem of
the ionization chamber (the length of the stem exposure
was 7 cm or higher). After the end part of the stem,
the ratios, at which the stem scatter contributed to the
exposure dose, were almost the same for 6-MV and 10MV X-rays. The average uncertainty was 3.24 102 %
for the measurement repeated ten times with the same
measurement method.

4. Overall Stem Effect of Ionization Chamber

In order to investigate the stem effect of the ionization

chamber (the sensitive volume is 0.6 cm3 ) that is frequently used in the measurement of the exposure dose,
we measured the stem leakage and the stem scatter and
used Eq. (3) to calculate the overall stem effect correction
factor (Pstem ). In addition, we used Eqs. (4) and (5) to
calculate the ratios at which the stem leakage (Rstem.leak )
and the stem scatter (Rstem.scatter ) contributed to the

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 58, No. 6, June 2011

Fig. 5, the stem effect has a correction factor value that

is similar to that of stem scatter.

IV. DISCUSSION

Fig. 4. (Color online) Correction factors of the overall stem

effect and the stem scatter versus the lengths of the exposed
stem compare for 6- and 10-MV X-rays in the PTW model
TM 30013 chamber.

Fig. 5. (Color online) Ratios of the stem leakage and the

stem scatter to the overall stem effect. The stem scatter
contributed around 95% to the overall stem effect in the parts
that excluded the middle of the chamber stem.

overall stem effect. Figure 4 shows the overall stem effect correction factor (Pstem ), which includes both the
stem leakage and the stem scatter that may take place
in the metal stem of the ionization chamber. The result shows that the stem effect contributed 2.44 3.56%
and 2.85 3.89% to exposure dose in all regions of the
metal stem for 6- and 10-MV X-rays, respectively. In
particular, the stem effect contributed to the exposure
dose at the maximum field size (which included the calibrated field size of the ionization chamber at 10 10
cm2 ) mostly used in clinical trials. Figure 5 shows the ratios at which the stem leakage (Rstem.leak ) and the stem
scatter (Rstem.scatter ) contributed to the overall stem effect. Excluding the middle part of the chamber stem (the
length of the stem exposure is 4 6 cm), the stem effect
caused by the stem leakage was approximately less than
5%, which is very small, and around 95% of the stem
effect took place in stem scatter. Therefore, as shown in

In radiation therapy where high-energy photons are

used, precise measurement of the dose from a radiation
source and a evaluation of the measurement error are
critical to the delivery of a precise prescription dose to
the tumor, for an evaluation of the tolerance dose for
normal tissue and for quality assurance (QA) of equipment [23,24]. In general, the ionization chamber has been
known to show the best characteristics for measuring radiation dose [25]. However, since the ionization chamber
is complicated and is influenced by the measurement environment, it has diverse correction factors [710]. When
measurements are conducted in a geometric field that is
different from the one used for ionization chamber calibration, stem calibration is recommended because of the
stem effect, in which electrons that are emitted from
the metal stem and insulator, depending on the length
of the ionization chamber stem, reach the central electrode to reduce the electric charge [14,15]. Nevertheless,
it is impossible to get a calibration for each measurement and the Accredited Dose Calibration Laboratory
(ADCL) does not implement the calibration separately.
As research on the stem effect, most studies that have
been conducted thus far have focused on stem leakage for
photons in the low-energy region (1 MeV or less). There
has not been any study on stem scatter nor on the overall
stem effect.
Consequently, we sought to calculate the overall stem
effect correction factor (Pstem ) that included the stem
leakage and the stem scatter that might take place in
the chamber stem when measuring the exposure dose for
high-energy photons, which are used in radiation therapy. We measured the ionization chambers dependency
on measurement direction and material of the dummy
stem, both of which could play a role as other parameters in measuring the overall stem effect. The values of
the dependency were less than 0.04%, which was small
enough to be disregarded. Therefore, it was not necessary to consider such influential factors in the measurement results.
According to the measurement results for the stem
leakage, the exposure dose for a field size that included
the sensitive volume of the ionization chamber and a part
of the metal stem was the result of the primary beam,
which penetrated through the air without any interaction. The contribution of the stem leakage to the exposure dose was less than 0.04%, which was very small.
However, as the length of the stem exposure increased,
the stem leakage increased constantly and reached a
maximum value of 0.34% in the middle part of the chamber stem (the length of the stem exposure is 4 5 cm)
before gradually decreasing on an irregular basis after-

An Overall Stem Effect, including Stem Leakage and Stem Scatter Dae Cheol Kweon et al.

ward. Such stem leakage showed similar correction factors for 6- and 10-MV X-rays without any dependency
on the photon energy (Table 3).
Furthermore, the measurement result for stem scatter
showed that unlike the case with the stem leakage, as
soon as the beam reached the chamber stem, the scattered photons generated in the metal stem made a contribution to the exposure dose. As the length of the stem
exposure increased, the stem scatter increased gradually
and reached maximum values of 3.36% for 6 MV X-rays
and 3.70% for 10 MV X-rays in the middle part of the
chamber stem (the length of the stem exposure is 6 cm)
before decreasing on an irregular basis afterward. Such
stem scatter increased with increasing photon energy in
the chamber stem and showed similar correction factors
regardless of the photon energy after the end part of the
stem (Table 4).
Based on the results mentioned above, it can be said
that the stem effect, including stem leakage and the stem
scatter, was attributable to (1) the ions within the stem
that could be measured and (2) the ions that were generated between the end part of the stem and the cable. The
electrons emitted from the air in the space from the middle part of the stem to the end part of the stem have an
increasing probability of ion recombination as they move
farther away from the collection electric field, which hinders a normal measurement. Therefore, the stem effect
decreased gradually after the middle part of the chamber stem. However, as the beam reached the metal stem,
the electrons emitted from the metal stem arrived at the
center electrode, making a clear contribution to the exposure dose. Such a stem effect was found to increase
linearly up to the middle part of the metal stem. In
conclusion, the Farmer-type ionization chamber that is
frequently used to measure the exposure dose, with a
sensitive volume of 0.6 cm3 , showed a stem effect of less
than around 4% that increased linearly up to the middle
part of the metal stem, but afterward decreased linearly
because the distance from the collection electric field became large, even though the length of the stem exposure
increased, which eventually increased the recombination
of ions. In such a region of ion recombination, the stem
effect showed similar correction factors regardless of the
photon energy because the effect had nothing to do with
the number of the electrons emitted from the metal stem.
In this study on the stem effect, we suggest two points.
First, when the ionization chamber has a small sensitive
volume and the a metal stem with a operating voltage of
400 V (for example, the ionization chamber has a sensitive volume of 0.125 cm3 with a stem length of 4.25 cm),
the ion recombination region will decrease, and the number of the electrons collected in the center electrode will
increase because the distance between the center electrode and the chamber stem decreases. Therefore, the
stem effect will increase linearly throughout the metal
stem, which requires consideration of more correction
factors to the stem effect. Second, it should be noted
that the stem effect makes it, maximum contribution to

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exposure dose when such an effect is generated from the

metal stem of the ionization chamber at the field size (including the calibrated field size of the ionization chamber
at 10 10 cm2 ) that is mostly used in the clinical trial.
Figure 5 shows the ratios of the stem leakage and the
stem scatter to the overall stem effect. In all regions of
the chamber stem, excluding the middle part the ratio of
the stem leakage to the overall stem effect was found to
be less than around 5%, which is very small, and most of
the stem effect was attributable to stem scatter (Table
5). As a result, we expect to find in this study that the
stem scatter, when a dummy stem is used, will be the
stem effect of the ionization chamber because the stem
leakage emitted from the chamber stem contributes very
little to the overall stem effect of the Farmer-type ionization chamber that is used for exposure dose measurements with a sensitive volume of 0.6 cm3 and because
most of the stem effect is attributable to stem scatter.

V. CONCLUSION
We measured the stem effect of a Farmer-type ionization chamber that had recently been in use for exposure
dose measurements and present some conclusions based
on the measurement results. We repeated the measurements for five weeks in the same method to observe the
stem effect for various changes in the measurement environment. The measurement results showed that the stem
effect increased slightly with decreasing temperature or
increasing pressure. Since the stem effect correction factor showed a slight change, not absolutely but relatively,
according to the given measurement environment, an individual measurement of the stem effect of ionization
chambers to be applied in clinical trials in the division of
radiation oncology, are required. Furthermore, radiation
therapy focuses on verification of prescription dose at
a certain depth of tissue rather than on measurement of
the exposure dose, so that the absorbed dose is measured
in most of the cases. Also there exist various absorbers
with the different depths for measurement. For these
reasons, we believe that a study should be conducted on
a new stem correction method for the absorbed dose.

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