Experimental verification of beam characteristics for cyclotron-based epithermal neutron source (C-BENS)

H Tanaka; Y Sakurai; M Suzuki; S Masunaga; T Mitsumoto; K Fujita; G Kashino; Y Kinashi; Y Liu; M Takada; K Ono; A Maruhashi

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2011.03.020

Experimental verification of beam characteristics for cyclotron-based epithermal neutron source (C-BENS)

Appl Radiat Isot. 2011 Dec;69(12):1642-5. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2011.03.020. Epub 2011 Mar 21.

Authors

H Tanaka¹, Y Sakurai, M Suzuki, S Masunaga, T Mitsumoto, K Fujita, G Kashino, Y Kinashi, Y Liu, M Takada, K Ono, A Maruhashi

Affiliation

¹ Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University, Osaka, Japan. h-tanaka@rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp

PMID: 21463945
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2011.03.020

Abstract

A cyclotron-based epithermal neutron source has been developed for boron neutron capture therapy. This system consists of a cyclotron accelerator producing 1.1-mA proton beams with an energy of 30 MeV, a beam transport system coupled with a beryllium neutron production target, and a beam-shaping assembly (BSA) with a neutron collimator. In our previous work, the BSA was optimized to obtain sufficient epithermal neutron fluxes of ~10(9) cm(-2) s(-1) using a Monte Carlo simulation code. In order to validate the simulation results, irradiation tests using multi-foil activation at the surface of a gamma-ray shield located behind the collimator and water phantom experiments using a collimated epithermal neutron beam were performed. It was confirmed experimentally that the intensity of the epithermal neutrons was 1.2×10(9) cm(-2) s(-1).