Method for fast determination of the angle of ionizing radiation incidence from data measured by a Timepix3 detector

This paper presents a method of how to determine spatial angles of ionizing radiation incidence quickly, using a Timepix3 detector. This work focuses on the dosimetric applications where detectors and measured quantities show significant angle dependencies. A determined angle of incidence can be used to correct for the angle dependence of a planar Timepix3 detector. Up until now, only passive dosemeters have been able to provide a correct dose and preserve the corresponding incidence angle of the radiation. Unfortunately, passive dosemeters cannot provide this information in “real” time. In our special setup we were able to retrieve the spatial angles with a runtime of less than 600 ms. Employing the new Timepix3 detector enables the use of effective data analysis where the direction of incident radiation is computed from a simple photon event map. In order to obtain this angle, we combine the information extracted from the map with known 3D geometry surrounding the detector. Moreover, we analyze the computation time behavior, conditions and optimizations of the developed spatial angle calculation algorithm.