Radiological protection. Characteristics of reference pulsed radiation - Photon radiation

2Scope / Description

1 Scope
This document is directly applicable to pulsed X-radiation with pulse duration of
0,1 ms up to 10 s. This range covers the whole range used in medical diagnostics at
the time of publication. Some specifications can also be applicable for much shorter
pulses; one example is the air kerma of one pulse. Such a pulse can be produced, e.g.
by X-ray flash units or high-intensity femtosecond-lasers. Other specifications are
not applicable for much shorter pulses; one example is the time-dependent behaviour
of the air kerma rate. This cannot be measurable for technical reasons as no suitable
instrument is available, e.g. for pulses produced by a femtosecond-laser.
This document specifies the characteristics of reference pulsed radiation for calibrating and testing radiation protection dosemeters and dose rate meters
with respect to their response to pulsed radiation. At this point, it is only concerned with the characteristics of single pulses. Single
pulses are the most difficult for dosemeters to measure. Determining the dose for
repeated pulses is easier, but still more difficult than for continuous radiation, i.e. the performance of the dosemeters when measuring repeated pulses lies between
these extremes. The radiation characteristics includes the following:

time-dependent behaviour of the air kerma rate of the pulse;
time-dependent behaviour of the X-ray tube high voltage du...