Scintillating array for real-time high-resolution ion therapy dosimetry - Initial Design and Simulations

Radiobiology is a multidisciplinary area where the effects of radiation in cells, tissues and organs are studied. To understand the biological effects of radiation it's important to have a measurement of the energy deposition at the micro or even nano-scale. This project is focused in the development of a detector that offers radiobiology researchers the possibility to achieve real-time dose measurement at the submillimiter scale. The technique chosen resorts to scintillation dosimetry with plastic optical fibres. The optical fibres offer a very good spatial resolution down to 0.25 mm and good tissue equivalence. In this work we present the inital design of the detector, ready for construction. The detector will be built as an irradiation box with a sensitive area composed of an array of plastic optical fibres with the possibility of mapping the dose in one plane or in two orthogonal planes with a spatial resolution of 1×1 mm², 0.5×0.5 mm² and 0.25×0.25 mm² depending on the optical fibres used. The detector will be prepared to receive a cell culture plate and for moving it in front of the detector's sensitive area.