Hadrontherapy: from the conventional to the laser-driven approach
<br /><br />
Charged particle acceleration using ultra-intense and ultra- short laser
pulses has gathered a strong interest in the scientific community and it is
now one of the most attractive topics in the relativistic laser-plasma
interaction research. Indeed, it could represent the future of particle
acceleration and open new scenarios in multidisciplinary fields, in
particular, medical applications.
<br /><br />
One of the biggest challenges consists of using, in a future perspective,
high intensity laser-target interaction to generate high-energy ions for
therapeutic purposes, eventually replacing the old paradigm of
acceleration, characterized by huge and complex machines.
<br /><br />
The peculiarities of laser-driven beams led to develop new strategies and
advanced techniques for transport, diagnostics and dosimetry of the
accelerated particles, due to the wide energy spread, the angular
divergence and the extremely intense pulses. In this framework, INFN-LNS
(Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics, Catania (I)) in collaboration with
ELI-Beamline Institute (Dolny Brezany, CZ) will realize, within 2017 the
ELIMED (ELI-Beamlines MEDical and multidisciplinary applications) beamline.
<br /><br />
ELIMED will be the first Users’ addressed transport beamline dedicated to
the medical and multidisciplinary studies with laser-accelerated ion beams
and completely open to the scientific community wishing to perform
experiments with these new beams.
<br /><br />
The beamline will permit in-air irradiations of controlled laser-driven ion
beams to perform typical multidisciplinary experiments, from biological
irradiations to detector tests and general samples irradiation.
<br /><br />
In this paper, a progress status of the beamline with its main transport,
diagnostic and dosimetric elements, will be presented.