ELIMED, MEDical and multidisciplinary applications at ELI-Beamlines

F Schillaci ,M Maggiore ,D Giove ,L Torrisi ,M Carpinelli ,C De Martinis ,Aleksandra Ristíc-Fira ,V Scuderi ,Pietro Pisciotta ,D Margarone ,G Korn ,F Romano ,Lorenzo Manti ,F M Perozziello ,Marcella Renis ,G.a.p Cirrone ,G Cuttone ,A Anzalone ,A Tramontana ,A Musumarra ,Ivan Petrović ,M Cutroneo ,Giuseppe Schettino ,S Tudisco

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/508/1/012010

Abstract

ELI-Beamlines is one of the pillars of the pan-European project ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure). It will be an ultra high-intensity, high repetition-rate, femtosecond laser facility whose main goal is generation and applications of high-brightness X-ray sources and accelerated charged particles in different fields. Particular care will be devoted to the potential applicability of laser-driven ion beams for medical treatments of tumors. Indeed, such kind of beams show very interesting peculiarities and, moreover, laser-driven based accelerators can really represent a competitive alternative to conventional machines since they are expected to be more compact in size and less expensive. The ELIMED project was launched thanks to a collaboration established between FZU-ASCR (ELI-Beamlines) and INFN-LNS researchers. Several European institutes have already shown a great interest in the project aiming to explore the possibility to use laser-driven ion (mostly proton) beams for several applications with a particular regard for medical ones. To reach the project goal several tasks need to be fulfilled, starting from the optimization of laser-target interaction to dosimetric studies at the irradiation point at the end of a proper designed transport beam-line. Researchers from LNS have already developed and successfully tested a high-dispersive power Thomson Parabola Spectrometer, which is the first prototype of a more performing device to be used within the ELIMED project. Also a Magnetic Selection System able to produce a small pencil beam out of a wide energy distribution of ions produced in laser-target interaction has been realized and some preliminary work for its testing and characterization is in progress. In this contribution the status of the project will be reported together with a short description of the of the features of device recently developed.

Highlights

Laser ion acceleration has gained interest over the last years and a wide variety of applications has been proposed to exploit the power of high-current multi-MeV ion beams produced in high-power (>1018 W/cm2) short-pulse (30 fs – 10 ps) laser interaction with thin solid foils [1,2]
A part from the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration (TNSA), very promising results have been obtained for the Radiation Pressure Acceleration regime (RPA) which is different for thick and thin targets [10 - 13]
The ELIMED preparatory phase has already started and several researchers are already involved in the development and study of the detectors and transport devices

Summary

Introduction

Laser ion acceleration has gained interest over the last years and a wide variety of applications has been proposed to exploit the power of high-current multi-MeV ion (especially proton) beams produced in high-power (>1018 W/cm2) short-pulse (30 fs – 10 ps) laser interaction with thin solid foils [1,2]. This would require the development of an angular and energy selection system to make such beams suitable to different applications or the utilization of different mechanisms of laser proton acceleration.

Results

Conclusion