Measurement of therapeutic 12C beam in a water phantom using CR-39

The motivation for this study was to explore a new method to test the particle spatial distribution for a therapeutic carbon beam. CR-39 plastic nuclear track detectors were irradiated to a 276.5 MeV u−1 mono-energy carbon beam at the heavy ion facility in the Shanghai Proton and Heavy Ion Center. The spatial distribution of the primary carbon beam and secondary fragments in a water phantom were systematically analyzed both in the transverse direction (perpendicular to the projection direction of the primary beam) and at different depths in the longitudinal direction (along the projection direction of the primary beam) with measured tracks on the CR-39 detectors. Meanwhile, the theoretically spatial distribution and linear energy transfer (LET) spectra of the primary beam and secondary fragments were calculated using the Monte Carlo (MC) toolkit Geant4. The results showed that the CR-39 detectors are capable of providing high lateral resolution of carbon ion at different depths. In the range of the primary carbon beam, the beam width simulated with MC is in good agreement with that of experimental measurement. The track size registered in the CR-39 has a good correlation with the particle LET. These findings indicate that the CR-39 can be used for measuring both the particle flux and its spatial distribution of carbon ions.