Speaker
Ziad Abou Haidar
(Centro Nacional de Aceleradores-CNA/University of Seville)
Description
Silicon detectors are widely used in nuclear physics and particle detection. In addition to their low cost, silicon detectors present very good time, position (angular), and also energy resolution, besides being easily coupled to commercial dedicated electronics.
The detectors we use for nuclear reactions measurements are commercial single or double sided silicon strip detectors (S/D SSSD). They are segmented into silicon strips on vertical and/or horizontal directions. Each strip has its own electronic chain and the double sided version allows to divide the detector into hundreds of pixels.
DITANET helped establish a permanent experimental setup, based on these detectors, and data analysis protocol at the nuclear physics line of National Accelerator Center (CNA). Knowledge about silicon detectors as well as their electronics (analog, digital and logic) and data acquisition codes have been acquired by performing nuclear reaction and fragment tracking experiments.
From our experience in nuclear instrumentation and following DITANET requirements, an active research program was established to study quality assurance for radiation therapy with high-energy photon beams between the Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics and the Engineering School of the University of Seville, the CNA, the Virgen Macarena Hospital and the private company INABENSA (ABENGOA), in Seville. This collaboration exploits and joins the knowledge of the different groups in nuclear instrumentation, silicon detectors, electronic and mechanical design, theoretical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations, transferring these expertises to the medical field, more precisely to radiotherapy treatments.
Recently, we have finished the characterization of the “W1-SS-500” detector, by measuring 2D dose maps in an axial plane and showing its performance to verify intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatments.
Based on these results and on tests performed on a “BB7” detector model from Micron Semiconductor Ltd, we are in the process of designing a new detector in collaboration with them.
Author
Ziad Abou Haidar
(Centro Nacional de Aceleradores-CNA/University of Seville)
