Calculation of photon interaction parameters of some biological tissue

In this thesis study, the mass attenuation coefficients of some biological tissues (adipose tissue, lung tissue, muscle tissue, skeletal cartilage, skeletal cortical tissue, skin tissue, soft tissue) were calculated using WinXCom code program for total photon interaction in 1 keV-100 GeV energy range. The values of mass attenuation coefficient (μρ) are measure of the photon's penetrationfor a substance at a given energy.Firstly,the values of the mass attenuation coefficient must be calculated to determine the effective atomic number and electron density of a material.Therefore, the mass attenuation coefficients (μρ) of these biological tissues were determined from the WinXCom code in the 1keV-100GeV energy range.Then effective atomic number andelectron density were determined using those values. In this study, graphs of mass attenuation coefficients, effective atomic number and the electron density were plotted against photon energy. The regions were detected that were dominated by photoelectric effect, incoherent scattering and pair production. The photoelectric effect was found to be dominant in the low energy range, incoherent scattering the center and pair production events in the higher energy range.For each of these three prevailing cases, the effective atomic number and electrondensities have been recalculated. Those parameters were plotted and analyzed against energy. Besides, an experimental study in lung tissue and skeleton was performed and compared with the theoretical value Key words: Effective atomic number (Zeff), Electron density (Nell), Mass attenuation coefficients (μρ).