Proton computed tomography (pCT) offers a potential route to reducing range uncertainties for proton therapy treatment planning, however the current trend towards high current spot scanning treatment ...systems leads to high proton fluxes which are challenging for existing systems. Here we demonstrate a novel approach to energy reconstruction, referred to as 'de-averaging', which allows individual proton energies to be recovered using only a measurement of their integrated energy without the need for spatial information from the calorimeter.
The method is evaluated in the context of the Optimising Proton Therapy through Imaging (OPTIma) system which uses a simple, relatively inexpensive, scintillator-based calorimeter that reports only the integrated energy deposited by all protons within a cyclotron period, alongside a silicon strip based tracking system capable of reconstructing individual protons in a high flux environment. GEANT4 simulations have been performed to examine the performance of such a system at a modern commercial cyclotron facility using a
≈ 10 mm beam for currents in the range 10-50 pA at the nozzle.
Apart from low-density lung tissue, a discrepancy of less than 1% on the Relative Stopping Power is found for all other considered tissues when embedded within a 150 mm spherical Perspex phantom in the 10-30 pA current range, and for some tissues even up to 50 pA.
By removing the need for the calorimeter system to provide spatial information, it is hoped that the de-averaging approach can facilitate clinically relevant, cost effective and less complex calorimeter systems for performing high current pCTs.
The production of the strip sensors for the ATLAS Inner Tracker (ITk) will start in 2020. Nearly 22,000 large area sensors will be produced over a period of about five years by Hamamatsu Photonics ...K.K. (HPK). The institutes involved in the sensor development and production are committed to deliver and maintain the highest quality sensors for the experiment. A Quality Assurance (QA) strategy has been prepared to be carried out during the whole production period. Once the process has been characterized as providing the required pre-irradiation specifications and the proper radiation hardness, the onus is on the manufacturer to rigidly stick to that qualified process. Still, sample testing with specific device-element structures and irradiation of devices should be implemented by the ITk sensor collaboration.
A detailed irradiation and testing plan has been prepared by the ATLAS-ITk Collaboration, together with a newly designed test chip with specific structures to monitor different key technological and device parameters during the whole production. The tests and irradiations will be carried out on a sample basis. In order to have a practical methodology, samples from alternating batches will be sent for irradiations with protons, neutrons and gammas, and then tested in order to check that the characteristics remain within specifications. The detailed plan and the design and test methods for the structures in the test chip are presented here.
The ATLAS experiment is going to replace the current Inner Detector with an all new inner tracker (ITk) in the ATLAS detector for HL-LHC at CERN. Silicon strip detectors cover the outer layers of the ...barrel and the endcap sections. We have designed and fabricated a prototype single-sided n+-in-p AC-coupled silicon strip sensor for the outer barrel layer with long strips (LS), ATLAS17LS. It is of the maximum allowable size to fit in a 6-in. silicon wafer, with an outer dimension of 9.80(width)×9.76(length)cm2. The sensor features two rows of LS strip segments, 4.83 cm strip length per segment, a strip pitch of 75.5 μm, and a slim edge design. We have implemented technology for high voltage operation of up to 1000V, with a good signal collection after irradiation fluence of 5.6 × 1014neq∕cm2at the end of HL-LHC operation.
We had two objectives for the ATLAS17LS fabrication: qualification of the sensor design and fabrication quality, and providing an adequate number of the sensors for prototyping the building blocks of the strip detector. The sensors were fabricated in 3 batches by HPK with standard wafers from the foundry (320 μm physical thickness). Additional 10 sensors were fabricated with a thinner active thickness of 240 μm to investigate the influence of active thickness on charge collection. Another additional 5 sensors, with special passivation to investigate the influence of passivation on humidity sensitivity. The visual inspection of fabricated sensors revealed an inadequacy that the designed metal width of 10 μm was too narrow. The initial measurements by the vendor showed that the sensors fulfilled the specifications: onset voltages of Microdischarge VMD above the operation voltage VOP (700V for the 1st and 2nd batches; 500V for the 3rd batch, which has improved the yield), leakage currents of < 0.1μA/cm2 at VOP, full depletion voltages VFD< 330V, and rates of bad strips <<1%.
MALTA2 is a depleted monolithic active pixel sensor (DMAPS) developed in the Tower 180 nm CMOS imaging process. Monolithic CMOS sensors offer advantages over current hybrid imaging sensors both in ...terms of increased tracking performance due to lower material budget but also in terms of ease of integration and construction costs due to the monolithic design. Current research and development efforts are aimed towards radiation-hard designs up to 100 Mrad in Total Ionizing Dose and 3×1015 1 MeV neq/cm2 in Non-Ionizing Energy Loss. One important property of a sensor’s radiation hardness is the depletion depth at which efficient charge collection is achieved via drift movement. Grazing angle test-beam data was taken during the 2023 SPS CERN test beam with the MALTA telescope and Edge Transient Current Technique studies were performed at DESY in order to develop a quantitative study of the depletion depth for un-irradiated, epitaxial MALTA2 samples. The study is planned to be extended for irradiated and Czochralski MALTA2 samples.
The upgrade of the tracking detectors for the High Luminosity-LHC (HL-LHC) requires the development of novel radiation hard silicon sensors. The development of Depleted Monolithic Active Pixel ...Sensors targets the replacement of hybrid pixel detectors with radiation hard monolithic CMOS sensors. We designed, manufactured and tested radiation hard monolithic CMOS sensors in the TowerJazz 180 nm CMOS imaging technology with small electrodes pixel designs. These designs can achieve pixel pitches well below current hybrid pixel sensors (typically 50 × 50μm) for improved spatial resolution. Monolithic sensors in our design allow to reduce multiple scattering by thinning to a total silicon thickness of only 50μm. Furthermore monolithic CMOS sensors can substantially reduce detector costs. These well-known advantages of CMOS sensor for performance and costs can only be exploited in pp-collisions at HL-LHC if the DMAPS sensors are designed to be radiation hard, capable of high hit rates and have a fast signal response to satisfy the 25 ns bunch crossing structure of LHC. Through the development of the MALTA and Mini-MALTA sensors we show the necessary steps to achieve radiation hardness at 1015 neq/cm2 for DMAPS with small electrode designs. The sensors combine high granularity (pitch 36.4x36.4μm2), low detector capacitance (<5fF/pixel) of the charge collection electrode (3μm), low noise (ENC≈10 e−) and low power operation (1μW/pixel) with a fast signal response (25 ns bunch crossing). The sensors feature arrays of 512 × 512 (MALTA) and 16 × 64 (Mini-MALTA) pixels. To cope with high hit rates expected at HL-LHC (>200 MHz/cm2) we have implemented a novel high-speed asynchronous readout architecture. The paper summarises the optimisation of the pixel design to achieve radiation hard pixel designs with full efficiency after irradiation at >98% after 1015 neq/cm2).
In this article, a low-power, radiation-hard front-end circuit for monolithic pixel sensors, designed to meet the requirements of low noise and low pixel-to-pixel variability, the key features to ...achieve high detection efficiencies, is presented. The sensor features a small collection electrode to achieve a small capacitance (<5 fF) and allows full CMOS in-pixel circuitry. The circuit is implemented in the 180-nm CMOS imaging technology from the TowerJazz foundry and integrated into the MALTA2 chip, which is part of a development that targets the specifications of the outer pixel layer of the ATLAS Inner Tracker upgrade at the LHC. One of the main challenges for monolithic sensors is a radiation hardness up to 10 15 1-MeV <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\text {n}_{\text {eq}}/\text {cm}^{{2}} </tex-math></inline-formula> non-ionizing energy loss (NIEL) and 80 Mrad total ionizing dose (TID) required for this application. Tests up to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{3} \cdot {10}^{15} </tex-math></inline-formula> 1-MeV <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\text {n}_{\text {eq}}/\text {cm}^{{2}} </tex-math></inline-formula> and 100 Mrad were performed on the MALTA2 sensor and front-end circuit, which still show good performance even after these levels of irradiation, promising for even more demanding applications such as the future experiments at the high-luminosity large hadron collider (HL-LHC).
Purpose:
Radiography and tomography using proton beams promise benefit to image guidance and treatment planning for proton therapy. A novel proton tracking detector is described and experimental ...demonstrations at a therapy facility are reported. A new type of proton CT reconstructing relative “scattering power” rather than “stopping power” is also demonstrated. Notably, this new type of imaging does not require the measurement of the residual energies of the protons.
Methods:
A large area, silicon microstrip tracker with high spatial and temporal resolution has been developed by the Proton Radiotherapy Verification and Dosimetry Applications consortium and commissioned using beams of protons at iThemba LABS, Medical Radiation Department, South Africa. The tracker comprises twelve planes of silicon developed using technology from high energy physics with each plane having an active area of ∼10 × 10 cm segmented into 2048 microstrips. The tracker is organized into four separate units each containing three detectors at 60° to one another creating an x-u-v coordinate system. Pairs of tracking units are used to reconstruct vertices for protons entering and exiting a phantom containing tissue equivalent inserts. By measuring the position and direction of each proton before and after the phantom, the nonlinear path for each proton through an object can be reconstructed.
Results:
Experimental results are reported for tracking the path of protons with initial energies of 125 and 191 MeV. A spherical phantom of 75 mm diameter was imaged by positioning it between the entrance and exit detectors of the tracker. Positions and directions of individual protons were used to create angular distributions and 2D fluence maps of the beam. These results were acquired for 36 equally spaced projections spanning 180°, allowing, for the first time, an experimental CT image based upon the relative scattering power of protons to be reconstructed.
Conclusions:
Successful tracking of protons through a thick target (phantom) has demonstrated that the tracker discussed in this paper can provide the precise directional information needed to perform proton radiography and tomography. When synchronized with a range telescope, this could enable the reconstruction of proton CT images of stopping power. Furthermore, by measuring the deflection of many protons through a phantom, it was demonstrated that it is possible to reconstruct a new kind of CT image (scattering power) based upon this tracking information alone.
Quad-module characterization with the MALTA monolithic pixel chip Dachs, F.; Zoubir, A.M.; Sharma, A. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
07/2024, Volume:
1064
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The MALTA silicon pixel detector combines a depleted monolithic active pixel sensor (DMAPS) with a fully asynchronous front-end and readout. It features a high granularity pixel matrix with a 36.4 μm ...symmetric pixel pitch, low power consumption of <1 μW/pixel and low material budget with detector thicknesses as little as 50 μm. It achieves a radiation hardness to 100MRad TID and more than 1 × 10E15 1 MeV neq/cm2 with a time resolution of <2 ns (Pernegger et al., 2023).
In order to cover large sensitive areas efficiently with a minimum of power and data connections the development of modules, comprising of up to 4 MALTA detectors, is studied.
This contribution presents the beam test performance of parallel and serial powered MALTA 4-chip modules in an effort to characterize the sensor’s chip-to-chip data and power transmission and prepare the production of a first prototype of an ultra-light weight 4-chip module on a flexible circuit with next generation MALTA2 sensors.
•A novel proton CT imaging system, based entirely on solid-state detector technology.•First proton CT scan with solid-state detectors.•Potential for short scan times as well as improvement in RSP ...accuracy.
Proton CT is widely recognised as a beneficial alternative to conventional X-ray CT for treatment planning in proton beam radiotherapy. A novel proton CT imaging system, based entirely on solid-state detector technology, is presented. Compared to conventional scintillator-based calorimeters, positional sensitive detectors allow for multiple protons to be tracked per read out cycle, leading to a potential reduction in proton CT scan time. Design and characterisation of its components are discussed. An early proton CT image obtained with a fully solid-state imaging system is shown and accuracy (as defined in Section IV) in Relative Stopping Power to water (RSP) quantified.
A solid-state imaging system for proton CT, based on silicon strip detectors, has been developed by the PRaVDA collaboration. The system comprises a tracking system that infers individual proton trajectories through an imaging phantom, and a Range Telescope (RT) which records the corresponding residual energy (range) for each proton. A back-projection-then-filtering algorithm is used for CT reconstruction of an experimentally acquired proton CT scan.
An initial experimental result for proton CT imaging with a fully solid-state system is shown for an imaging phantom, namely a 75 mm diameter PMMA sphere containing tissue substitute inserts, imaged with a passively-scattered 125 MeV beam. Accuracy in RSP is measured to be ⩽1.6% for all the inserts shown.
A fully solid-state imaging system for proton CT has been shown capable of imaging a phantom with protons and successfully improving RSP accuracy. These promising results, together with system the capability to cope with high proton fluences (2×108 protons/s), suggests that this research platform could improve current standards in treatment planning for proton beam radiotherapy.
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