Design of electron beam bending magnet system for electron and photon therapy: A simulation approach

Abstract

The doubly achromatic electron beam bending magnet system using two sector magnets has been designed for the medical applications to treat the cancer. The aim of electron beam bending magnet system is to focus an electron beam having a spot size less than 3 mm × 3 mm, energy spread within 3% and divergence angle ≤ 3mrad at the target position. To achieve these parameters, the simulation has been carried out using Lorentz-3EM software. The beam spot, divergence angle and energy spread have been observed with respect to the variation in angles of sector magnets and drift distance. Based on the simulated results, it has been optimized that the first and second magnet has an angle 206^° and 35^° and the drift distance 80 mm. It is also observed that at the 1125, 1762, 2570, 3265 and 4155 Amp-turn, the optimized design produces 3369, 4972, 6384, 7584 and 9568 Gauss of magnetic field at median plane which require to bend 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 MeV energy of electron, respectively, for the electron therapy application. The output beam parameters of the optimized design are energy spread ±3%, divergence angle ~3 mrad and spot size 2.6 mm. Moreover, for 6 MV and 15 MV photon therapy applications, an electron beam of energy 6.5 MeV and 15.5 MeV extracted from magnet system and focused on the bremsstrahlung target. Various materials have been studied for photon generation using Monte Carlo based Fluka code and Tungsten material has been optimized as bremsstrahlung target which produces continuous energy bremsstrahlung spectrum. For the photon therapy, the 1233 and 3327 amp-turn, in an optimized design produces 3616 and 7785 Gauss of magnetic field at median plane require to bend 6.5 and 15.5 MeV energy of electron, respectively, which further produces bremsstrahlung radiation from Tungsten target.