A novel technique of helium ion radiography has been developed by the Heidelberg team using Timepix-based pixel telescopes and instrumentation supplied by ADVACAM. Timepix technology, together with telescopes’ high spatial resolution and high signal-to-noise, enables to resolve ion products and perform spectrometry (energy loss) on primary and secondary ions. These together allow precise determination of the particle trajectories and solve intrinsic effects such as multiple Coulomb scattering. The team developed a prototype detection system for helium-beam radiography (αRad) potentially valuable for verification and online monitoring of beam range and spatial dose conformal distributions.
The above image shows set-up for the acquisition of an αRad of a Euro coin. The detection system consists of three Timepix detectors for energy deposition measurements, ion identification and tracking.
Images taken from Image taken from Physics World
ADVACAM also provided consulting and support including the per-pixel energy calibrations and data pre-processing. ADVACAM science team supporting this field of research (Jan Jakubek, Carlos Granja, Daniel Turecek).
Results and the technique have been published in the journal of Medical Physics and reported in Physics World
