Cherenkov excited luminescence imaging induced by megavolt X-ray beams in the second near-infrared window

Abstract

Although the Cherenkov light contains mostly short-wavelength components, it is beneficial in the aspect of imaging to visualize it in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window. In this study, Cherenkov imaging was performed within the NIR-II range on megavolt X-ray beams delivered by a medical linear accelerator. A shielding system was used to reduce the noises of the NIR-II image, enabling high quality signal acquisition. It was demonstrated that the NIR-II Cherenkov imaging is potentially a tool for radiotherapy dosimetry, and correlates well with different parameters. The NIR-II Cherenkov imaging is less susceptible to scattering, while more susceptible to absorption, compared with the visible-near-infrared imaging. Finally, a mouse was used to demonstrate this technology on animals. These results indicate the potentials to apply NIR-II Cherenkov imaging in the practice of radiotherapy.

External beam irradiation angle measurement using a hybrid Cerenkov-scintillation detector

“…On the other hand, interest for Cerenkov emission dosimetry has increased over the past decades. While most emerging techniques are focusing on in-vivo Cerenkov imaging (Hachadorian et al 2020, Tendler et al 2020 or in-water detection with an out-of-field detector (Glaser et al 2013, 2014, Pogue et al 2015, Meng et al 2019, Zlateva et al 2019a, 2019b, Yogo et al 2020, few are based on Cerenkov light produced in optical fibres (Jang et al 2013. Challenges of using Cerenkov signal from an optical fibre arise from the delimitation of a sensitive volume and the signal discrimination of the Cerenkov also produced in the transport fibre itself.…”