RADIATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL BIOPHYSICS, cilt.54, sa.4, ss.481-492, 2015 (SCI-Expanded)
A direct method has been used for the first time, to compute effective atomic numbers (Z (eff)) of water, air, human tissues, and some organic and inorganic compounds, for total electron proton and alpha particle interaction in the energy region 10 keV-1 GeV. The obtained values for Z (eff) were then compared to those obtained using an interpolation procedure. In general, good agreement has been observed for electrons, and the difference (%) in Z (eff) between the results of the direct and the interpolation method was found to be < 10 % for all materials, in the energy range from 10 keV to 1 MeV. More specifically, results of the two methods were found to agree well (Dif. < 10 %) for air, calcium fluoride, kapton polyimide film, paraffin wax and plastic scintillator in the entire energy region with respect to the total electron interaction. On the other hand, values for Z (eff) calculated using both methods for protons and alpha particles generally agree with each other in the high-energy region above 10 MeV.