The primary task of the division is the realization and dissemination of the units of the physical quantities which are important in the measurement of ionizing radiation. These quantities are: the activity to characterize the amount of a radionuclide, the particle fluence to describe radiation fields, and various absorbed and dose equivalent quantities to describe the radiation energies absorbed to material. To allow for the significant differences between the measuring methods for the individual physical quantities, the division was subdivided into the following departments.
As the methods for measuring the activity in the fields of radiation protection and medicine are closely related, they can be concentrated in one department (6.1 Radioactivity). On the other hand, the dose measuring procedures in radiation protection and medicine differ so much from each other and the fields are so vast that it was necessary to establish separate departments for them (6.2 Dosimetry for radiation therapy and diagnostic radiology and 6.3 Radiation protection dosimetry).
As a matter of principle, all measuring procedures for the different types of ionizing radiation must be made available. The development of measuring procedures for neutron radiation (e.g. different ion accelerators for the generation of reference radiation fields) is, however, much more complex and expensive than for the other radiation types, and the physical bases for the measuring techniques differ so much from those in the three departments above that separate departments had to be set up.
The Department 6.4 Ion accelerators and reference radiation fields is responsible for the generation of neutron radiation fields and of fields for high-energy photons and ions. Separate from this, Department 6.5 Neutron radiation was created whose focus is on neutron dosimetry and neutron spectrometry. In the Department 6.6 Fundamentals of dosimetry, the division documents its wish to bundle resources with a view to opening up, in the medium term, completely new prospects for radiation metrology by innovative approaches such as the computation of the generation of ionization clusters in nanometric targets and the application of the results to metrological concepts.
The six departments are supplemented by Section 6.71 Operational radiation protection attending to all adminstrative and practical radiation protection issues of PTB.
Structure of Divsion 6
