Collection and focusing of laser accelerated ion beams for therapy applications

Experimental results in laser acceleration of protons and ions and theoretical predictions that the currently achieved energies might be raised by factors 5–10 in the next few years have stimulated research exploring this new technology for oncology as a compact alternative to conventional synchrotron based accelerator technology. The emphasis of this paper is on collection and focusing of the laser produced particles by using simulation data from a specific laser acceleration model. We present a scaling law for the “chromatic emittance” of the collector—here assumed as a solenoid lens—and apply it to the particle energy and angular spectra of the simulation output. For a 10 Hz laser system we find that particle collection by a solenoid magnet well satisfies requirements of intensity and beam quality as needed for depth scanning irradiation. This includes a sufficiently large safety margin for intensity, whereas a scheme without collection—by using mere aperture collimation—hardly reaches the needed intensities