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A dedicated dose delivery monitor is under development for the TOP-IMPLART proton accelerator, the first LINAC for cancer therapy. It is expected to measure the intensity profile to precisely monitor the fully active 3+1D (x/y/z and intensity) dose delivery of each short pulses (few micro-s, 0.1-10 micro-A pulse current at ~100 Hz) of the therapeutic proton beam (up to 230 MeV). The monitor system consists of planar gas chambers operating in ionization regime with cathode plane made ofμpattern pads alternately connected by orthogonal strips*. The dedicated readout electronics features trans-impedance amplifier that dynamically adapts its integrating feedback capacitance to the incoming amount of charge, then opportunistically changing its gain. The measured absolute sensitivity is about 100 fC (better than 0.03 relative sensitivity), the dynamic range up to 10000 (2 gain settings) with time response at the level of few ns, and virtually no dead time. Small scale chamber prototype (0.875 mm pitch pads) and readout electronics have been tested and characterized under both electron (5 MeV) and proton (up to 27 MeV) beams., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Beam Instrumentation Conf., IBIC2016, Barcelona, Spain

The results of a 27MeV proton LINAC commissioning are presented. The linac, operating at ENEA Frascati Research Center, consists of a 425MHz injector followed by a 3GHz booster. The injector is a commercial LINAC (ACCSYS-HITACHI PL7) composed by a duoplasmatron source with einzel lens, a 3MeV RFQ and a 7MeV DTL. Wide injection current range (0-1.5mA) is obtained varying extraction and lens potentials. The booster is a sequence of 3 SCDTL (Side Coupled DTL) modules with output energies of 11.6, 18 and 27MeV. Each module requires less than 2MW peak power in 4us length pulses. All modules are powered by a single klystron. The output beam has been characterized at 10Hz PRF. Fast AC transformers, Faraday cup and ionization chamber have been used for current/charge monitoring, while energy has been measured using a novel detector based on LiF crystals. Systematic measurements have been done to investigate the sensitivity of output beam to machine operating parameters (SCDTL temperatures, stability of injector and RF power) highlightning the existing correlations. The LINAC is part of a 150MeV protontherapy accelerator under development in the framework of the TOP-IMPLART Project., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Beam Instrumentation Conf., IBIC2016, Barcelona, Spain

The TOP-IMPLART (Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy Linear Accelerator for Radiotherapy) linac is a 150 MeV pulsed proton linear accelerator for protontherapy applications under realization, installation and progressive commissioning at ENEA. It is the first linac running with 3GHz SCDTL (Side Coupled DTL) accelerating modules. These constitute the first two sections of the whole linac up to 71 MeV proton energy, while the accelerating structure of the following part of the accelerator is under definition. Each SCDTL section is powered by a 10 MW peak power klystron. The first section, consisting of 4 modules (7 to 35 MeV) has been completed and it is operational at low repetition rate (25 Hz). The second section, consisting of other 4 modules (up to 71 MeV), is currently under executive design. The output beam at each stage of the progressive commissioning is fully characterized. The beam is routinely employed in radiobiology experiments and detector evaluation. The paper presents the actual status of the machine, installation, beam characterization and an overview of the experimental activity results., Proceedings of the 8th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2017, Copenhagen, Denmark

The purpose of the BIOxTREME project, launched by ENEA and funded by ASI (Italian Space Agency), is to formulate new biological drugs having a stimulant activity on the immune system finalizing the production for a ready to use resource in Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSSs) for space missions with extended durations, in deep space, and with multiple crews. One of the project tasks is to study the effects of physical insults on plants, simulating cosmic environment on production platforms by static magnetic fields, microgravity and ionizing radiation. In order to examine the biological effects, to test plant radio-resistance and to build dose-response curves we carried out proton irradiations of a tomato cultivar Micro-Tom red hairy roots with the TOP-IMPLART accelerator at the ENEA Frascati Research center. The biological samples were placed in a holder specially made in a movable real-time monitoring chamber calibrated in dose. The fluence-homogeneity measurements over the sample and the calibration of the monitoring system were performed using GafChromic EBT3 films. The paper describes the experimental set-up and reports the preliminary results., Proceedings of the 6th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2015, Richmond, VA, USA