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Project

HERMMES - Hadron Energy Resolved Measurement using Magnic Electron Separation

The detectors currently available are well suited for some specific tasks. However, there is to our knowledge no compact detector that can measure proton energy and determine the proton range for both offline and online measurements. Such an ideal detector should not be based on a scanning detector system or a bulky energy detection system that stops the proton to determine its energy, and it should be immune to quenching effects that require extensive calibration without a guaranteed generalizability. Our hypothesis is that such ideal detector can be achieved by separating electrons generated by protons using magnetic fields, and by collecting such electrons to retrieve information on the primary beam. With this approach the whole system can be compact and used online and offline. The objective of this project is to develop a prototype detector for determining hadron energies from first physical principles using a compact system, that can be used offline and online. The method is based on collecting secondary electrons to estimate the energy from the proton that generated them.  This approach can ideally enable flat panel proton radiography/proton CT, which can address the issue of range uncertainty by improving stopping power estimation; while, for QA purposes, the detector could provide both evaluation of energy and spatial resolution.

Date:16 Oct 2020 →  Today
Keywords:proton therapy, detector system, proton therapy QA
Disciplines:Medical biophysics, Radiation therapy, Other (bio)medical engineering not elsewhere classified
Project type:PhD project