19th January 2024
Preliminary results of a prototype detection system using a synchronous integration technique to efficiently acquire high photocurrent peaks generated by a highly sensitive (S = 26 nC/Gy) custom-made photoconductive diamond detector irradiated by electron-FLASH beams have been reported in the paper “A readout system for highly sensitive diamond detectors for FLASH dosimetry”, published in the Physics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology Journal and available on-line at
https://www.phiro.science/article/S2405-6316(24)00008-3/fulltext.
This work marks the first implementation of the gated-integration technique for real-time monitoring of high current peaks generated by a diamond detector under intense electron beams. The measurement of the collected charge, limited to the time period around the incident pulse, ensures an optimal signal-to-noise ratio. Remarkably, the versatility of the proposed instrument paves the way to using mature commercial diamond dosimeters in conventional radiation therapy, even in the context of FLASH dosimetry.
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Comments are welcome (stefano.salvatori@unicusano.it ; sara.pettinato@unicusano.it)
8th December 2023
Sara Pettinato presented “A NOVEL DIAMOND-BASED DETECTION SYSTEM FOR PULSE-BY-PULSE DIAGNOSTICS OF ELECTRON BEAMS IN FLASH RADIATION THERAPY” work at the international Flash Radiotherapy and Particle Therapy Conference held last December in Toronto, Canada.
A custom-made diamond dosimeter, coupled with a specifically developed gated-integrator, was characterized under High Dose-Per-Pulse electrons generated by an ElectronFlash apparatus at SIT laboratories (Aprilia, Italy). The dosimetric system was characterized with 7 MeV electron pulses of different duration and different pulse repetition frequency.
The experimental results outlined in this study, acquired in the last months of 2023, serve as the launching pad for the Ophelia project. Indeed, they demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed detection system in real-time monitoring of the dose released by each pulse, even for pulses with amplitudes > 10 mA (i.e., two orders of magnitude higher than what conventional instrumentation used by medical physicists can acquire).
