SCINTILLATION ARRAY APPARATUS AND METHOD OF USE THEREOF

摘要

A scintillation material is longitudinally packaged in a circumferentially surrounding sheath, where the sheath has a lower index of refraction than the scintillation material, to form a scintillation optic or scintillation fiber optic. The scintillation material yields secondary photons upon passage of a charged particle beam, such as a positively charged residual particle beam having transmitted through a sample. The internally generated secondary photons within the sheath are guided to a detector element by the difference in index of refraction. Multiple scintillation optics are assembled to form a two-dimensional scintillation array coupled to a two-dimensional detector array, such as for use in determination of state of the residual charged particle beam, determination of an exit point of the particle beam from the sample, path of the treatment beam, and/or tomographic imaging.

主权项

1. A method for tomographic imaging a tumor of a patient with positively charged particles, comprising the steps of:
transporting the positively charged particles along a beam transport line from an accelerator, through the tumor, and to a plurality of scintillation optics, each scintillation optic of said plurality of scintillation optics comprising:
a longitudinal length of a first scintillation material comprising a first index of refraction; anda cladding circumferentially enclosing said longitudinal length of said first scintillation material, said cladding comprising a second index of refraction, said second index of refraction less than said first index of refraction; and detecting secondary photons emitted from said first scintillation material, resultant from energy transfer from the positively charged particles, with a two-dimensional detector array optically coupled to a two-dimensional matrix of said plurality of scintillation optics.