The dependence of the virtual point detector on the scintillation detector dimensions

Abstract The virtual point detector (VPD) is a useful concept, which is used to simplify the calibration and usage of radiation detectors. Investigation and validation of the VPD concept for a variety of NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors’ geometrical dimensions and incident photon energies is presented. Monte Carlo calculations were performed in order to find the correlation between the VPD position and the detector dimensions. A general formula was found, describing the dependence of the VPD position on cylindrical detector’s radius, attenuation coefficient and photon energies. The expression was found to be valid to 8% error relative to simulation data, for a large parameter range.