Frontiers in Physics (Oct 2020)

A High-Granularity Digital Tracking Calorimeter Optimized for Proton CT

  • Johan Alme,
  • Gergely Gábor Barnaföldi,
  • Rene Barthel,
  • Vyacheslav Borshchov,
  • Tea Bodova,
  • Anthony van den Brink,
  • Stephan Brons,
  • Mamdouh Chaar,
  • Viljar Eikeland,
  • Grigory Feofilov,
  • Georgi Genov,
  • Silje Grimstad,
  • Ola Grøttvik,
  • Håvard Helstrup,
  • Alf Herland,
  • Annar Eivindplass Hilde,
  • Sergey Igolkin,
  • Ralf Keidel,
  • Chinorat Kobdaj,
  • Naomi van der Kolk,
  • Oleksandr Listratenko,
  • Qasim Waheed Malik,
  • Shruti Mehendale,
  • Ilker Meric,
  • Simon Voigt Nesbø,
  • Odd Harald Odland,
  • Odd Harald Odland,
  • Gábor Papp,
  • Thomas Peitzmann,
  • Helge Egil Seime Pettersen,
  • Pierluigi Piersimoni,
  • Maksym Protsenko,
  • Attiq Ur Rehman,
  • Matthias Richter,
  • Dieter Röhrich,
  • Andreas Tefre Samnøy,
  • Joao Seco,
  • Joao Seco,
  • Lena Setterdahl,
  • Hesam Shafiee,
  • Hesam Shafiee,
  • Øistein Jelmert Skjolddal,
  • Emilie Solheim,
  • Arnon Songmoolnak,
  • Arnon Songmoolnak,
  • Ákos Sudár,
  • Ákos Sudár,
  • Jarle Rambo Sølie,
  • Ganesh Tambave,
  • Ihor Tymchuk,
  • Kjetil Ullaland,
  • Håkon Andreas Underdal,
  • Monika Varga-Köfaragó,
  • Lennart Volz,
  • Lennart Volz,
  • Boris Wagner,
  • Fredrik Mekki Widerøe,
  • RenZheng Xiao,
  • RenZheng Xiao,
  • Shiming Yang,
  • Hiroki Yokoyama

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2020.568243
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8

Abstract

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A typical proton CT (pCT) detector comprises a tracking system, used to measure the proton position before and after the imaged object, and an energy/range detector to measure the residual proton range after crossing the object. The Bergen pCT collaboration was established to design and build a prototype pCT scanner with a high granularity digital tracking calorimeter used as both tracking and energy/range detector. In this work the conceptual design and the layout of the mechanical and electronics implementation, along with Monte Carlo simulations of the new pCT system are reported. The digital tracking calorimeter is a multilayer structure with a lateral aperture of 27 cm × 16.6 cm, made of 41 detector/absorber sandwich layers (calorimeter), with aluminum (3.5 mm) used both as absorber and carrier, and two additional layers used as tracking system (rear trackers) positioned downstream of the imaged object; no tracking upstream the object is included. The rear tracker’s structure only differs from the calorimeter layers for the carrier made of ∼200 μm carbon fleece and carbon paper (carbon-epoxy sandwich), to minimize scattering. Each sensitive layer consists of 108 ALICE pixel detector (ALPIDE) chip sensors (developed for ALICE, CERN) bonded on a polyimide flex and subsequently bonded to a larger flexible printed circuit board. Beam tests tailored to the pCT operation have been performed using high-energetic (50–220 MeV/u) proton and ion beams at the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center (HIT) in Germany. These tests proved the ALPIDE response independent of occupancy and proportional to the particle energy deposition, making the distinction of different ion tracks possible. The read-out electronics is able to handle enough data to acquire a single 2D image in few seconds making the system fast enough to be used in a clinical environment. For the reconstructed images in the modeled Monte Carlo simulation, the water equivalent path length error is lower than 2 mm, and the relative stopping power accuracy is better than 0.4%. Thanks to its ability to detect different types of radiation and its specific design, the pCT scanner can be employed for additional online applications during the treatment, such as in-situ proton range verification.

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