Dr Tony Price-Ford, Andrew Nixon, Stuart Hill, Dr Spyros Manolopolous, Prof. Stuart Green, and Prof. David Parker oPAC International Conference, Seville 07/10/2015 Developments and Optimisation of the University of Birmingham Cyclotron

Scanditronix MC40 Cyclotron The Scanditronix MC40 was brought at auction from the Veterans Affairs Medical Centre, Minneapolis in 2002 and following transfer and commissioning has been operational since 2004 Capable of accelerating beams of: Protons (3-38 MeV) Deuterons ( MeV) Helium-3 (9-53 MeV) Helium-4 (11-37 MeV) Currents of fA to μ A are possible 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Past and Current Uses Isotope production Thin layer activation studies Creation of PEPT tracers (F-18Water & Solid beads) Radiobiology Rb-81 production for medical purposes Accelerated radiation damage tests for LHC Metallurgy Nuclear Physics Development & testing of novel proton CT device 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Typical day on the cyclotron Two shifts Sun-Monday 13:00-21:00 Monday-Friday 6:00-13:00 Between 6:00-9:00 every morning PEPT isotopes are created for the PEPT group to allow industrial developments After 16:00 every evening Rb-81 is produced for medical purposes. This has a half life of 4.6 hours and decays to Kr-81m gas. This is collected each evening and distributed to NHS centres around the country for imaging lung functionality Between these times the cyclotron is available for research purposes. To maximise the impact of this research this window must be optimally utilised 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Beam Setup and QA RF tuned for appropriate frequency. Currents in main coils, 8 concentric trim coils and 4 sets of harmonic centring coils adjusted to optimise internal beam Beam extracted by adjusting deflector voltage Cyclic process until stable coherent beam is found on FC outside the cyclotron Switching magnet then used to direct beam down one of 12 beam lines This process usually takes ~30 minutes. Rest of the talk will focus on developments made to the research beam line to reduce setup and QA times where possible 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Beam Flattening Relatively quick & simple to achieve a small (1-2cm) diameter uniform beam For anything much larger than this the beam is defocused using two sets of Quadrupole magnets Achieving a large (5 cm) uniform beam in this way can be challenging and time consuming Typically 45 mins of optimising would yield a beam with ±20% dose uniformity Dose distribution collected on EBT3 GaFChromic film for a defocued 36 MeV beam 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Beam Flattening System A beam flattening system has been developed in conjunction with Stuart Hill (Masters student with Open University) Aims of the flattening system were to: Achieve a 5 cm beam uniform to greater than 90% Reduce the beam energy of the 36 MeV beam by < 1 MeV Reduce the setup time Make the beam more reproducible day-to-day Decided to use a single scattering system with a large throw distance to minimise material budget in the beam Following preliminary measurements Ta chosen as the thin scattering foil as gave the largest angle per energy loss 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Beam Flattening System Plunger to allow complete removal of system from beam when not required Double collimator system to ensure parallel beam BNC connectors to measure current to scattering foil and collimators 80 μ m Ta foil to scatter beam fixed to final collimator 3500mm to nozzle 300mm from Quads 300mm separation 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

The scattering foil for both energy beams yields a 5 cm beam which is uniform to > 90% over whole area. The time to setup this beam is significantly reduced (now 15 mins not 45 mins) due to optimising and then scattering a small beam. Beam Flattening System 29 MeV Beam36 MeV beam Certainly reproducible! But need to understand why we see same pattern all the time even when we change the energy of the beam. 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Collimation System Previously on this beam line the options were a 10, 20, or 50 mm diameter beam To change between these required the breaking of the vacuum and a complete change of nozzle. Work with Andrew Nixon (Clinical Scientist at QEHB and Masters student) led to the development of a new nozzle which better mimics a clinical environment and allows for the rapid change of collimators. 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Collimation System Wide range of collimators available, any shape can be cut 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Collimation System 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Measuring the beam energy To ensure a clean, coherent beam is extracted which has not scattered down the beam pipe or interacted with anything left in the beam pipe from previous experiments a Bragg Peak is reconstructed Various known thicknesses of Perspex are inserted between two ionisation chambers (Transmission Chamber upstream and Markus Chamber downstream) and the ratio of charge collected calculated As the proton slows the signal collected in the Markus Chamber increases relative to the Transmission Chamber and the Bragg Peak is mapped out Conventional method required the opening of a large mechanical door and breaking of interlocks to change the Perspex. A typical Bragg Peak took 75+ minutes to measure An example BP where a small collimator had been left upstream from previous experiments 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Automated PeakFinder Using an old Scanditronix RFA-300 controller we can now use a 1D scanner to change the Perspex thickness A graduated piece of Perspex with 100 μ m steps around the Bragg Peak Still uses transmission and Markus chambers so read out systems unchanged Major time now is collecting data not setting up! 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Automated PeakFinder 36 MeV uses a 4 mm block of Perspex to get additional range Measurements with automated arm took just 26 minutes and the interlock was broken just once during the 29 MeV data taking to add a 50 μ m Perspex shim to improve resolution of Bragg Peak Excellent agreement of 29 MeV methods shows density of Perspex is the same and we can still use all current MC simulations! 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Alignment Tool 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain, A lot of time is currently spent aligning different apparatus to the beam New collimator insert is a self contained laser pointer Project small laser point which coincides exactly with the centre of the beam Will make alignment much faster and easier!

New Table Metamorphasis 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Future Ideas – Spot Scanning! 2D contoller 2D Wellhofer Headscanner Kindly donated by Dundee Hospital 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Conclusions MC40 Cyclotron is extremely flexible and has a varied workload. Research time is limited to ~7 hours in the day We have developed the research beam line to be more user friendly and faster to set up to optimise the use of this time Beam flattening 45 mins  15 mins Energy Measurement 75 mins  26 mins Changing of collimators 30 mins  1 min (every change) Alignment Tool mins  10 mins Total saving of mins + every collimator change Leads to 35+% more useable time in a day!! Future plans to develop spot scanning as well as scattered beam are very interesting! 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Acknowledgments 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain, Would like to thank the organisers for assistance with attending the conference. This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust translational grant (PRaVDA). Supported by the H2020 project AIDA-2020, GA no

Thank you for listening! Any Questions? 07/10/2015 oPAC International Conference, Seville, Spain,

Dr Price-Ford with assistance from Sandcross Primary School, Surrey 07/10/2015 Children In Space – What does the future hold for young scientists in the 21 st Century?