Istituto Nazionale Di Fisica Nucleare

Universitá Degli Studi Di Torino

De.tec.tor S.r.l.

Instituto Nazionale Di Fisica Nucleare

Roberto Sacchi

Nicolò Cartiglia

Nicoló Cartiglia

Giovanni Mazza

Federico Fausti

A circuit arrangement for acquisition of signals from an apparatus for measuring beams of charged particles for external radiotherapy, in particular protons, carbon ions, and other ion species, emitted by particle accelerators, comprising at least one ionization-chamber sensor (), which includes a plurality of sensor channels (), said circuit arrangement () comprising a plurality of channel branches (B, . . . , B; BR, . . . , BR) in parallel designed to be connected to said sensor channels () for receiving respective measurement signals (i) therefrom, said channel branches (B, . . . , B; BR, . . . , BR) comprising respective current-to-frequency converters () and counters () for supplying count values (CT), representing a charge associated to a given channel (), to a multiplexer (). According to the invention, said channel branches (BR, . . . , BR) supply their own outputs (CT, . . . , CT) directly to said multiplexer () and to an adder structure () comprising at least one first column () of adders () that adds up the values at the outputs (CT, . . . , CT) of the channel branches (Br, . . . , BR) to supply sum values (CT_, . . . , CT_, CT_, . . . , CT_, CT_) at outputs thereof, said multiplexer () being configured for selecting, from the direct outputs (CT, . . . , CT) of the channel branches (BR, . . . , BR) and the outputs (CT_, . . . , CT_, CT_, . . . , CT_, CT_) of the adder structure (), a signal to be supplied to a readout electronics () for reading the channels (), in particular in order to enable the channels necessary for detecting a given peak excursion via the multilayer-ionization-chamber sensor () without saturating.

Circuit arrangement for acquisition of signals from an apparatus for measuring beams of charged particles for external radiotherapy

Systems and methods for measuring mono-energetic hadron beams are provided. Such systems and methods include a first detection unit having a planar sensor with a sensing area segmented into a matrix of pixels, each pixel being adapted to provide a transit signal indicative of transit of a particle therethrough, and a counting circuit coupled to the sensor for providing an output signal indicative of number of particles Nof the beam crossing said sensing area in a time interval, based on the transit signals provided by said pixels, and a second detection unit arranged downstream of the first detection unit which includes at least one ionization detector for providing an output signal proportional to the total charge Qreleased by the beam (B) in the ionization detector in such time interval.

Devices for the simultaneous measurement in real time of energy and of flux of mono-energetic beams of hadrons of low energy

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Turin, Italy

Roberto Sacchi