Medical beam monitor—Pre-clinical evaluation and future applications

Future medical ion beam applications for cancer therapy which are based on scanning technology will require advanced beam diagnostics equipment. For a precise analysis of beam parameters we want to resolve time structures in the range of microseconds to nanoseconds. A prototype of an advanced beam monitor was developed by the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt and its research subsidiary Fotec in co-operation with CERN RD42, Ohio State University and the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana. The detector is based on polycrystalline Chemical Vapor Deposition (pCVD) diamond substrates and is equipped with readout electronics up to 2 GHz analog bandwidth. In this paper we present the design of the pCVD-detector system and results of tests performed in various particle accelerator based facilities. Measurements performed in clinical high energy photon beams agreed within 1.2% with results obtained by standard ionization chambers.