Electron beams at 10 MeV are commonly used to irradiate materials such as medical devices and food products. While E-beam processing offers very good performance in terms of throughput, they typically deliver higher dose uniformity ratios (DUR) inside the product compared to techniques based on X-ray and Gamma rays.

This challenge in dose uniformity comes from two factors:

- The dose versus depth profile of electron beams shows a sharp decrease when the product depth is larger than the optimal electron range, resulting in a significant reduction of the minimal dose. Double-sided irradiation can be used to alleviate the issue and render thicker products compatible with E-beam irradiation, though it can lead to a large dose uniformity ratio (DUR) in some cases.

- Electron beams suffer from a rather large edge effect: on the product edges, scattered electrons have a probability to leave the product, while electrons passing in the air experience very little scattering and thus have a low chance of reentering the product. This leads to a reduction of the dose at the edges of the product.

A known improvement of E-beam processing comes in the form of a scattering plate, positioned between the beam and the products. The scattering plate improves the DUR and, in some cases, increases the minimum dose – thus improving the throughput.

While several studies have been conducted in the past, these studies focused on Monte Carlo simulations rather than experimental results. The present study aims to compare results from Monte Carlo simulations with experimental measurements performed in an industrial setup. A good match between the two will be shown, demonstrating further that the use of a scattering plate can lead to significant improvements in throughput and product compatibility.