Transportation of Beta Particles
Like any other radiation traveling in matter, the range, energy deposited, and scattering patterns are very important properties in nuclear medicine. The range of a beta particle in specific material could be defined as the total distance traveled by the beta particle after a continuous loss of its initial energy and is brought to rest in the material. This distance must be a well defined number, the same for all identical particles with the same initial energy in the same type of material. This quantity depends on the type of material, the particle type and its energy. Although, energy loss is not continuous, but statistical in nature, experiments show that identical particles exhibit a statistical distribution of ranges about some mean value . For beta particles propagating through a media at low kinetic energy, relativistic effects become important . Moreover, Collisions with orbital electrons may result in large energy transfers of up to 50% of the incident electron kinetic energy, while collisions with nuclei of the absorber may result in bremsstrahlung production (radiative loss).
Range energy relation is necessary for deciding the sizes of detectors to be used in an experiment or in determining the thickness of radiation shielding .
