Fiorini, Francesca (2012)
Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham.
Laser-driven particle acceleration is an area of increasing research interest given the recent development of short pulse high intensity lasers. A significant difficulty in
this field is given by the exceptionally large instantaneous dose rates which such particle beams can produce. This represents a challenge for standard dosimetry
techniques and more sophisticated procedures need to be explored. In this thesis I present novel detection and characterisation methods using a combination of GafChromic films, TLD chips, nuclear activation and Monte Carlo simulations, applicable to laser-driven beams. Part of the work is focused on the detection of laserdriven protons used to irradiate V79 cells in order to determine the feasibility of laser-driven proton therapy. A dosimetry method involving GafChromic films and numerical simulations has been appositely developed and used to obtain cell survival results, which are in agreement with those obtained by conventionally accelerated proton beams. Another part is dedicated to the detection and characterisation of laser-driven electron and X-ray beams. An innovative simulation method to obtain the temperature of the electrons accelerated by the laser, and predict the
subsequently generated X-ray beam, has been developed and compared with the acquired experimental data.
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