Figure 3
Dose effect of C-ions (312 MeV/u, 180 mm range) on the triggered vaporization of PVA/PFB NDs @ 37 °C: (a) Top-view photographs of independent phantoms of NDs dispersed in PAM (4 × 106 NDs/ml) post-irradiation at doses between 0.1 and 4 Gy (the red scale bars correspond to 10 mm); (b) corresponding depth-resolved US images (7.5 MHz, MI = 0.1) of the NDs phantoms at each dose, the yellow arrow indicates the C-ions beam’ entrance side (scale bars are 5 mm); (c) Comparison of the average grayscale value profiles of the US images at different doses as a function of the distance traveled by C-ions (beam depth), the shaded areas correspond to the standard deviation (n = 6). (d) Variation of the FWHM of grayscale peaks as a function of the received C-ions dose (the red line is a dose–response fit function). (e) Evaluation of the peaks integrals from the average grayscale profiles as a function of C-ions dose. The inset shows the linear regression fits in the intervals of 0.1–1 Gy (green) and 0.1–2 Gy (red).
