Radiation Physics and Radiation Protection

Radiation protection, also known as radiological protection, is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as “The protection of people from harmful effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, and the means for achieving this”. Exposure can be from a radiation source external to the human body or due to the bodily intake of a radioactive material. A much-needed working resource for health physicists and other radiation protection professionals, this volume presents clear, thorough, up-to-date explanations of the basic physics necessary to address real-world problems in radiation protection. Designed for readers with limited as well as basic science backgrounds, Physics for Radiation Protection emphasizes applied concepts and carefully illustrates all topics through examples as well as practice problems. Filtration is the process of preferentially removing low energy X-ray photons from a polychromatic radiation beam. X-rays at all energies are actually attenuated by the filtration process with the lower energies being suppressed to a greater extent. X-ray photons are created by the interaction of energetic electrons with matter at the atomic level. The book contains just the right material for a one semester course and is not an exhaustive treatise on radiation.