Eur. Phys. J. D (2017) 71: 235
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2017-70679-7

Regular Article

Empirical formulae for mass attenuation and energy absorption coefficients from 1 keV to 20 MeV

¹ Department of Physics, Government College for Women, Kolar 563 101, Karnataka, India
² Department of Physics, Government First Grade College, Kolar 563 101, Karnataka, India
³ Vivekananda Degree College, Bangalore 560 055, Karnataka, India
⁴ Department of Physics, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India

^a e-mail: manjunathhc@rediffmail.com

Received: 3 November 2016
Received in final form: 3 April 2017
Published online: 12 September 2017

Abstract

A new empirical formula is proposed for mass attenuation and energy absorption coefficients in the region 1 <Z< 92 and from 1 keV to 20 MeV. The mass attenuation and energy absorption coefficients do not varies linearly with energy. We have performed the nonlinear regressions/nonlinear least square fittings and proposed the simple empirical relations between mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ) and mass energy absorption coefficients (μ_en/ρ) and energy. We have compared the values produced by this formula with that of experiments. A good agreement of present formula with the experiments/previous models suggests that the present formulae could be used to evaluate mass attenuation and energy absorption coefficients in the region 1 <Z< 92. This formula is a model-independent formula and is first of its kind that produces a mass attenuation and energy absorption coefficient values with the only simple input of energy for wide energy range 1 keV–20 MeV in the atomic number region 1 <Z< 92. This formula is very much useful in the fields of radiation physics and dosimetry.