The AISHa ion source at INFN-LNS

Modern hadron-therapy accelerators have to provide high intensity beams, for innovative dose-delivery modalities such as FLASH, pencil beams for 3D scanning, as well as multiple ions with radio-biological complementarity. They need to be compact, cheap and have a reduced energy footprint. At the same time, they need to be reliable, safe and simple to operate. Cyclotrons and compact synchrotrons are nowadays the standard for proton therapy. For heavier ions such as carbon, synchrotrons remain the most viable option, while alternative solutions based on linacs, FFAs or cyclotrons are being proposed. In this context, the European project HITRIplus studies the feasibility of an innovative super-conducting (SC) magnet synchrotron for carbon ions, with state-of-the-art multi-turn injection from a specially designed linac and advanced extraction modalities. A compact synchrotron optimized for helium ions, making use of proven normal-conducting technology, is also being designed.

Section: Flexible Beam Delivery and Multi-turn Injectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovations in the Next Generation Medical Accelerators for Therapy with Ion Beams

Benedetto,

Vretenar

2024

“…An ECR source will produce the carbon ion beam. AISHa source by INFN-LNS [7] is used as a reference. It can provide the high beam brightness required by the HITRIplus synchrotron design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…DTL2, 3 will follow the Alvarez-DTL1 reaching higher-energy ion acceleration aimed for radioisotope production.An ECR source will produce the carbon ion beam. AISHa source by INFN-LNS[7] is used as a reference. It can provide the high beam brightness required by the HITRIplus synchrotron design.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Alvarez Drift Tube Linac for Medical Applications in the Framework of Hitriplus Project

Mamaras,

Sampsonidis,

Bellan

et al. 2024

A first beam dynamics and RF design of an Alvarez-type drift tube linac (DTL) has been defined in the framework of the EU project, HITRIplus. It is meant primarily as a carbon (12C4+) and helium (4He2+) ion injector of a compact synchrotron for patient treatment. As a second implementation, helium particle acceleration with a higher duty cycle (10%) enables radioisotope production. The 352.2 MHz structure efficiently accelerates ion species with A/q=3 and 2, in the energy range from 1 to 5 MeV/u and for a beam current up to ∼0.5 mA. The design extends to a full length of ∼6.4 meters. Permanent magnet quadrupoles are utilized all along the DTL for focusing both ion beams. This paper presents a first-phase analysis towards a realistic DTL design capable of providing full beam transmission and minimum overall emittance increase for both A/q values.

“…Electron cyclotron resonance ion sources (ECRIS) [1] are the most used devices to produce stable or radioactive [2] beams of highly charged heavy ions for accelerator-based facilities. They are also employed to produce light ions beams for hadron therapy [3], as well as intense beams of singly charged ions for large scale facilities [4,5]. More, a magnetic trap based on the ECR principle is presently under construction at INFN-LNS to carry out fundamental studies of Nuclear Astrophysics [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First numerical evidence of the two-close frequency heating effect on electron cyclotron resonance ion sources

Galatà,

Biri,

Finocchiaro

et al. 2024

The two-close frequency heating (TCFH) is a new implementation of the well-known two frequency heating. In TCFH, the two frequencies differ around 200-300 MHz each other in order to establish two contiguous ECR resonance zones. TCFH has been proved to be a powerful technique to suppress plasma instabilities in Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources (ECRIS), as well as to improve their performances. Its beneficial effect, compared to the application of a single frequency, is always deduced from the extracted charge states distributions and from the detection of the plasma self-emission in the X-ray and microwave ranges. This paper presents the first approach to a numerical description of the two-close frequency effect, based on the relevant plasma parameters of the ECRIS setup operating at ATOMKI-Debrecen. Simulations have been performed by our PIC-Full Wave code, joining electron kinetics and FEM solution of Maxwell equations in a cold plasma model. Results on plasma electron density and energy distribution will be shown, together with a direct comparison with the already published data on X ray emission.