This document specifies the characteristics and production methods of X and gamma reference radiation for calibrating protection-level dosemeters and doserate meters with respect to the phantom related operational quantities of the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU)[5]. The lowest air kerma rate for which this standard is applicable is 1 ?Gy h?1. Below this air kerma rate the (natural) background radiation needs special consideration and this is not included in this document.
For the radiation qualities specified in Clauses 4 to 6, sufficient published information is available to specify the requirements for all relevant parameters of the matched or characterized reference fields in order to achieve the targeted overall uncertainty (k = 2) of about 6 % to 10 % for the phantom related operational quantities. The X ray radiation fields described in the informative Annexes A to C are not designated as reference X-radiation fields.
NOTE The first edition of ISO 4037-1, issued in 1996, included some additional radiation qualities for which such published information is not available. These are fluorescent radiations, the gamma radiation of the radionuclide 241Am, S-Am, and the high energy photon radiations R-Ti and R-Ni, which have been removed from the main part of this document. The most widely used radiations, the fluorescent radiations and the gamma radiation of the radionuclide 241Am, S-Am, are included nearly unchanged in the informative Annexes A and B. The informative Annex C gives additional X radiation fields, which are specified by the quality index.
The methods for producing a group of reference radiations for a particular photon-energy range are described in Clauses 4 to 6, which define the characteristics of these radiations. The three groups of reference radiation are:
a) in the energy range from about 8 keV to 330 keV, continuous filtered X radiation;
b) in the energy range 600 keV to 1,3 MeV, gamma r ...