Design of a Setup to Monitor an Ultra-High Dose Rate Proton Beam for Clinical Applications

Kingma, Lucas (2025) Design of a Setup to Monitor an Ultra-High Dose Rate Proton Beam for Clinical Applications. Bachelor's Thesis, Applied Physics.

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Abstract

A set-up is proposed for an optical system for Ultra-High Dose Rate (UHDR) dosimetry, where conventional diagnostic systems fail due to the high intensity proton beams. A scintillation method was used as a minimally invasive monitoring alternative. Thus, low-pressure nitrogen gas was utilized. An electron-multiplying CCD camera was implemented allowing it to produce images with a low light yield. Lack of shielding and reflections in the set-up lowered the quality of the images, resulting in the production and testing of an improved design. Multiple parameters were varied to test if the set-up works for various conditions. For the first design, the exposure times were 1 and 10 s, the gains were 1 and 50, the beam currents were 46 and 86 nA, the pressures were 5 x 10^(-4) and 1.1 x 10^(-1) mbar. The gain, a parameter that multiplies the received signal, shows great promise in improving the signal to noise ratio for light emission. And the pressure was kept low to keep scattering to a minimum. For the second experiment, the shielding had improved, resulting in less background radiation. Additionally, the set-up was tested with beam currents of 6 nA and 60 nA. The pressure and gain were increased to 110 mbar and 100, respectively. As a consequence of imaging beams with a factor of 10 difference in the beam current, the exposure time was increased to 100 s for the beam of 6 nA. This confirmed the linear scaling of the beam current and the exposure time on the light yield.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis)
Supervisor name:	Gerbershagen, A. and Dendooven, P.G.
Degree programme:	Applied Physics
Thesis type:	Bachelor's Thesis
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	30 Jul 2025 07:06
Last Modified:	30 Jul 2025 07:06
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/36591

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