A compact solution for ion beam therapy with laser accelerated protons

Abstract

The recent advancements in the field of laserdriven particle acceleration have made Laser-driven Ion Beam Therapy (L-IBT) an attractive alternative to the conventional particle therapy facilities. To bring this emerging technology to clinical application, we introduce the broad energy assorted depth dose deposition model which makes efficient use of the large energy spread and high dose-per-pulse of Laser Accelerated Protons (LAP) and is capable of delivering homogeneous doses to tumors. Furthermore, as a key component of L-IBT solution, we present a compact iso-centric gantry design with 360°r otation capability and an integrated shot-to-shot energy selection system for efficient transport of LAP with large energy spread to the patient. We show that gantry size could be reduced by a factor of 2-3 compared to conventional gantry systems by utilizing pulsed air-core magnets.

Assessment of secondary radiation and radiation protection in laser-driven proton therapy

“…by using a pulsed solenoid [24,25]) could improve the efficiency by up to two orders of magnitude. First design studies using pulsed magnets [8,26] are very promising.…”

“…[7]) and novel concepts are being developed to overcome this limitation [8]. The assumed initial energy spectrum of the protons used here is very broad (with energies up to 300 MeV) and derived by extrapolating current experimental spectra to higher energies (as done in [9] and [8]). This is based on the target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) mechanism [10] or other acceleration regimes that show broad energy spectra (e.g.…”

A treatment planning study to assess the feasibility of laser‐driven proton therapy using a compact gantry design

“…The pulsed-powered proton gantry utilized in this study has been specifically designed for laser-driven proton sources. 22 In the acceleration chamber at the entrance of the isocentric gantry, laser pulses are focused on laser targets and proton bunches are generated. These bunches are captured via a pulsed solenoid and transported to the integrated shot-to-shot energy selection system (ISESS) which consists of a 90 • dipole sector magnet, a quadrupole triplet, and an aperture of variable radius.…”

“…At first, the gantry design was used as presented in Masood et al 22 Here, the laser hits the laser target and the bunch of protons is transported through the beam line. Since only integer laser shots can be performed, the proton number in the filtered outgoing spectrum is only dependent on the initial proton number.…”

“…One way to realize such an ESS can be accomplished by a chicane consisting of four dipole magnets as proposed by Fourkal et al 19 and Yogo et al 20 However, Faby and Wilkens 21 have shown that such a setup is not the optimal solution for an exponentially decaying, broad proton spectrum with respect to shielding of secondary radiation. Recently, a novel design for a laser-driven compact gantry was published by Masood et al 22 which utilizes a new type of ESS. They presented a simulation for guiding a TNSA spectrum through a gantry beam line consisting of pulsed magnets showing to filter broad energy windows with much higher transport efficiency than previously published solutions.…”