TOMSK, Dec 18 – RIA Tomsk. Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) are developing an original method of measuring the electron beam profile, it can significantly reduce the cost of the procedure for radiation diagnostics, which is important when conducting radiation therapy or experiments in physics, the associate professor of TPU Sergey Stuchebrov told RIA Tomsk.
"In medicine and experimental physics, it is often critically important to measure the distribution of radiation, but without special devices it is impossible to evaluate the shape of an electron beam. Our team, which includes associate professor Yury Cherepennikov, research engineer Angelina Krasnykh and assistant Irina Miloychikova, is developing an original method to do it without the use of expensive solutions", - Stuchebrov told.
He explained that the idea came to mind when the team worked on the creation of collimators - devices that protect healthy tissue during radiation therapy. For a safer treatment, the electron beam must be of a complex shape that follows the outline of the tumor. Faced the need to constantly monitor the characteristics of the beam, the scientists did not find cheap and reliable methods for this.
"There are ... matrix detectors, but their resolution is not high - it does not meet our accuracy requirements. There are dosimetric films, which, by the principle of operation, resemble ordinary X-ray films, that is, as a result of measurement ensue radiation images. But they are very expensive (one pack for 20 pictures cost 1000 dollars) and require long processing. And we got the idea to measure the transverse beam profile using simple mechanical manipulations", - Stuchebrov said.In particular, polytechnicians suggested to do it with the help of a special-purpose wire scanner of a special design, which scans the beam in different directions and measures how the signal intensity changes. "The only thing is that the processing of the results requires a complex mathematical apparatus. There are used the same mathematical methods are as in tomography. In fact, we make a tomogram of the beam", - Stuchebrov explained.
According to him, now the team is working on an experimental model which will cost no more than half a million rubles. Scientists assume that this technology will be in great demand among experimental physicists: in the future, the beam diagnostics system can be built into accelerators, and of the highest class, up to the Large Hadron Collider.