Development of ionization chambers for monitoring high-intensity radiation beams

Publications, 25 August 2023

We offer to your attention a preprint “Development of ionization chambers for monitoring high-intensity radiation beams” P13-2023-34 issued by the JINR Publishing Department. The authors are Alexey Agapov, Gennady Mitsyn, Konstantin Shipulin.

In the Medical-Technical Complex of the DLNP JINR, two air ionization chambers were developed and tested as part of a research project exploring the “Flash effect” caused by a proton beam with an ultra-high dose rate on biological objects. The first chamber, a monitor parallel-plane chamber with an ultrathin gap, has a narrow interelectrode air gap of only 0.5 mm which ensures efficient charge collection and no recombination during measurements of high-intensity pulsed (with a duty cycle of 100) proton beams. The second chamber features a parallel-plane monitor chamber for dose delivery monitoring and a multi-pixel ionization chamber for beam spatial characteristic control. Electronic components and software were also developed for the cameras. Tests demonstrated the chambers’ full operability when measuring high-intensity proton beam parameters from the JINR Phasotron.

The study has been performed at the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems at JINR.