Overview of the application of nanosecond electron beams forradiochemical sterilization

Problems concerning the use of nanosecond electron beams for sterilization of hermetically packed objects, and powdered or granulated materials, are discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of this type of radiation sterilization are demonstrated. The results are of interest to researchers who study the mechanism by which nanosecond electron beams act on microorganisms. It is worth considering repetitively pulsed electron accelerators as highly promising systems for use in commercial sterilization applications. Technologies and setups for the radiochemical sterilization (RCS) of medical glassware for blood products, beer bottles, bone meal used in food industry, medical instruments (surgical needles, systems for human kidneys), and of the external packaging for some biological materials used in ophthalmology are discussed. Such applications have been developed based on the use of the URT-0.2 and URT-0.5 repetitively nanosecond-pulsed electron accelerators. The observed sterilization of areas shaded from line-of-site irradiation and of the bottoms of, for example, glassware cannot be attributed to radiation sterilization alone, since the glass thickness was much larger than the range of electrons. Therefore, it can be conjectured that the demonstrated sterilization effect is due both to the electron beam and to the ozone and chemical radicals produced by the beam. Thus, one may introduce the notion of RCS     

消色散270°偏转磁铁系统设计及束流动力学研究

对三种常用结构的270°偏转磁铁进行系统的分析研究,采用数值计算和模拟方法对双磁铁不对称偏转结构、三块90°磁铁偏转结构和70°+130°+70°偏转结构这三种不同的270°偏转磁铁系统进行模拟,给出偏转系统的消色散传输条件,并且分析了束流包络在偏转系统和出口管道中的变化情况。经过分析对比,详细列出了三种结构的优势与劣势。双磁铁不对称结构适用于医用加速器,三块90°磁铁偏转结构适用于需要在出口长距离漂移的辐照加速器,而70°+130°+70°偏转结构可以满足出口一定距离的无损漂移,同时实现相对较低的成本,是工业辐照加速器较为经济适宜的选择。     

High-energy passive-ionization electrons and holes in dielectrics with pulsed irradiation by high-density electron beams

This article is a survey of works by the author and colleagues on the investigation of charging and discharging dynamics in solid dielectrics exposed to dense electron beams with subnanosecond resolution. Small high-current electron accelerators of theDzhin type, which were developed and fabricated at the Nonlinear Physics Laboratory, were used as the source of the primary electron beam. The primary electron beam parameters were: 0.25–0.45 MeV, 1–30 nsec, 0.1–10,000 A/cm³. The dielectric is investigated experimentally with its surface covered by a metallic electrode and with critical electron emission into the vacuum eliminated. In this case, the total current in the dielectric consists of three components: the primary beam current, the displacement current, and the conduction current. The first and last are responsible for charging and discharging of the dielectric volume. It is shown that the bulk nonequilibrium radiation conduction mechanism depends greatly on the dose intensity. For small dose intensities, the principal current carriers are the low-energy electrons of the conduction band and holes of the valence band, which are in quasi-equilibrium with the lattice phonon field before capture by defects or merging into excitons preceding recombination. This type of conduction has been well studied in the physics of semiconductors and dielectrics. However, over a broad interval of intermediate and high dose intensities, another type of nonequilibrium conduction dominates — the high-energy, which was discovered and studied by the author and colleagues. The principal carriers are then passive-ionization electrons and holes with energies of 0.1–10 eV in the process of phonon relaxation in which phonon emission dominates absorption. The high-energy conduction differs considerably from the low-energy in many properties, which determines the unusual dynamics of dielectric charging and discharging with irradiation by the dense electron beam of a high-current accelerator. Institute of High-Current Electronics, Siberian Section, Russian Academy of Sciences. Tomsk Polytechnic University. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 11, pp. 109–119, November, 1996.     

Faraday-rotation self-interference method for electron beam duration measurement in the laser wakefield accelerator

Real-time single-shot measurement of the femtosecond electron beam duration in laser wakefield accelerators is discussed for both experimental design and theoretical analysis that combines polarimetry and interferometry.The probe pulse polarization is rotated by the azimuthal magnetic field of the electron beam and then introduced into a Michelson-type interferometer for self-interference. The electron beam duration is obtained from the region size of the interference fringes, which is independent of the pulse width of the probe laser. Using a larger magnification system or incident angle, the measurement resolution can be less than 1 fs.     

辐照用紧凑连续波电子加速器的物理设计

为适应工业电子加速器需求增多的现状,提出了一种新型的结构紧凑的连续波电子加速器,运行频率为180MHz。依靠置于加速腔外的多个偏转磁铁,使电子束多次穿越加速腔,从而得到持续的加速。设计过程中,用CST软件对谐振加速腔进行了优化,用Parmela软件模拟了束流的粒子动力学。粒子纵向稳定度和横向聚焦也通过模拟进行了分析和验证。结果显示:此种新型加速器能得到9MeV,100kW的稳定电子束流。     

电子束与烟气相互作用机制模拟分析

 电子束在烟气中穿透深度和剂量分布将直接影响废气中硫、氮氧化物的脱除效率。通过理论计算和蒙特卡罗模拟计算得到不同能量电子穿过各种厚度加速器箔窗后能量损失情况；对不同入射能量电子束在烟气中透射深度和轨迹分布进行了模拟计算。结果表明：电子束反应最佳能量为700 keV；利用产生1 m长线状束流的电子加速器进行双面照射，烟道反应室横截面最佳尺寸为1.0 m×3.5 m。     

Generation of trains of electron microbunches with adjustable subpicosecond spacing

We demonstrate that trains of subpicosecond electron microbunches, with subpicosecond spacing, can be produced by placing a mask in a region of the beam line where the beam transverse size is dominated by the correlated energy spread. We show that the number, length, and spacing of the microbunches can be controlled through the parameters of the beam and the mask. Such microbunch trains can be further compressed and accelerated and have applications to free electron lasers and plasma wakefield accelerators.     

High-resolution gamma-ray radiography produced by a laser-plasma driven electron source

An electron beam from a laser-plasma accelerator is converted into a gamma-ray source using bremsstrahlung radiation in a dense material. The gamma-ray beam has a pointlike source size because it is generated by a high quality electron beam with a small source size and a low divergence. Using this gamma-ray source, the radiography of complex and dense objects with submillimeter resolution is performed. It is the first evidence of a gamma-ray source size of a few hundreds micrometers produced with laser-driven accelerators. This size is consistent with results from Monte Carlo simulations.     

100 MeV电子直线加速器的物理设计

 能量为100 MeV左右的高性能电子直线加速器是第三代同步辐射光源注入器和自由电子激光注入器的重要组成部分,采用热阴极栅控电子枪、聚束系统和4根SLAC型加速管作为加速器主体结构,一套45 MW的速调管调制器系统和波导系统作为微波功率源系统。设计中,使用了国际通用的模拟软件对加速器的动力学特性进行了数值模拟和参数优化,电子束能量达到100 MeV以上,能散小于1%,归一化发射度小于30 mm·mrad。     

Distribution uniformity of laser-accelerated proton beams

Compared with conventional accelerators,laser plasma accelerators can generate high energy ions at a greatly reduced scale,due to their TV/m acceleration gradient.A compact laser plasma accelerator(CLAPA) has been built at the Institute of Heavy Ion Physics at Peking University.It will be used for applied research like biological irradiation,astrophysics simulations,etc.A beamline system with multiple quadrupoles and an analyzing magnet for laser-accelerated ions is proposed here.Since laser-accelerated ion beams have broad energy spectra and large angular divergence,the parameters(beam waist position in the Y direction,beam line layout,drift distance,magnet angles etc.) of the beamline system are carefully designed and optimised to obtain a radially symmetric proton distribution at the irradiation platform.Requirements of energy selection and differences in focusing or defocusing in application systems greatly influence the evolution of proton distributions.With optimal parameters,radially symmetric proton distributions can be achieved and protons with different energy spread within ±5% have similar transverse areas at the experiment target.     

Measurment of the energy spectrum of an electron beam extracted from an accelerator

The electron energy spectrum is one of the most important characteristics of an electron beam that is extracted from a linear accelerator. The most direct way to determine an electron spectrum would be to use a magnetic spectrometer and this method could also give results with high precision and effectiveness. In this article we describe our design of a new multilayer absorption method, which is based on the depth-dose curves method that can be used in most irradiation accelerators,and adds the Monte Carlo simulation and iterative algorithm in order to reconstruct the electron energy spectrum. In this article the energy spectrum was measured using these two methods, and good results were acquired. These results could be crosschecked, which made the results more reliable.     

DG型电子加速器自校正扫描系统的研制

为了提高DG型电子加速器束流扫描均匀度、解决束流中心偏移、提升束流引出效率,开发了一种既可实现X,Y两相互垂直方向均匀扫描又可以实现束流中心自动对中调节的扫描系统。介绍了扫描磁铁及其电源参数的选取依据,阐述了将扫描磁铁和束流校正线圈进行整体式设计的扫描系统扫描电流成形方式及自动对中电路信号调制过程,包括为提高加速器运行安全性而设计的连锁保护信号。产业化现场使用事实已证明,该系统设计完全达到了设计要求,具有优良的扫描均匀度和长时间工作稳定可靠性。     

Application of aluminum and titanium foils in low-energy wide-aperture electron accelerators

We have reported on the results of theoretical and experimental investigations of characteristics of aluminum and titanium foils used in devices to extract electron beams from wide-aperture low-energy accelerators with a high current density. The mechanical properties of foils at different temperatures and the electron beam transmission and absorption coefficients have been compared. The results of analyzing the dependences of the efficiency of the electron beam extraction from accelerators on the type of the electron–optical system, material, and thickness of the foil for various sizes of extraction windows and the same type of the slot support grids have been presented. We have proposed an analytic model for calculating the temperature of the foil in the unit cell of the support grid. The electron transmittance and absorbance, as well as the temperature regimes of the foils, have been calculated using different methods.     

Beam dynamics studies on the 100 MeV/100 kW electron linear accelerator for NSC KIPT neutron source

We designed a 100 MeV/100 kW electron linear accelerator for NSC KIPT, which will be used to drive a neutron source on the basis of subcritical assembly. Beam dynamics studies have been conducted to reach the design requirements (E=100 MeV, P=100 kW, dE/E<1% for 99% particles). In this paper, we will present the progress of the design and the dynamic simulation results. For high intensity and long beam pulse linear accelerators, the BBU effect is one big issue; special care has been taken in the accelerating structure design. To satisfy the energy spread requirement at the linac exit, the particles with large energy difference from the synchronous particle should be eliminated at a low energy stage to ease the design of the collimation system and radiation shielding. A dispersion free chicane with 4 bending magnets is introduced downstream of the 1st accelerating section; the unwanted particles will be collimated there.     

Hydrogen diffusion in steels under electron bombardment

We report on the results of measurement of the coefficients of hydrogen diffusion through metal membranes in the course of their simultaneous hydrogen saturation and bombardment with electrons (energy 30 keV, current density from 3 to 30 µA/cm²) both in a broad and in a narrow beam. It is found that the time of hydrogen discharge from the membrane is determined by the parameters of the electron beam, its periodicity and duration, and also depends on the structure of the phase state of the metal membrane. It is shown that the diffusion coefficient increases when a narrow electron beam in the scanning regime is used. Analysis of the hydrogen yield as a function of time is carried out on a mass spectrometer connected to a vacuum chamber containing an electron gun, a beam sweep oscillator, and an electrolytic cell. The hydrogen diffusion coefficients under the action of a scanning electron beam are 15 times larger than under the same conditions without irradiation.     

一种低能散RFQ加速器的物理设计

讨论了脉冲束注入、逐步增加同步相位、减小电极调制系数和极间电压等降低RFQ加速器能散的途径, 并在此基础上设计了一台能散为0.6%的RFQ加速器. 该加速器用于加速器质谱对¹⁴C, ¹³C, ²C 3种 离子的传输有很强的选择性, 有利于降低测量本底、简化装置.     

Laser-driven electron beam and radiation sources for basic,medical and industrial sciences

To date active research on laser-driven plasma-based accelerators have achieved great progress on production of high-energy, high-quality electron and photon beams in a compact scale. Such laser plasma accelerators have been envisaged bringing a wide range of applications in basic, medical and industrial sciences. Here inheriting the groundbreaker’s review article on “Laser Acceleration and its future” [Toshiki Tajima, (2010)],¹⁾ we would like to review recent progress of producing such electron beams due to relativistic laser-plasma interactions followed by laser wakefield acceleration and lead to the scaling formulas that are useful to design laser plasma accelerators with controllability of beam energy and charge. Lastly specific examples of such laser-driven electron/photon beam sources are illustrated.     

Realizing a laser-driven electron source applicable for radiobiological tumor irradiation

Laser-accelerated electron pulses have been used to irradiate human tumors grown on mice’s ears during radiobiological experiments. These experiments have been carried out with the JETI laser system at the Institute of Optics and Quantum Electronics in Jena, Germany. To treat a total of more than 50 mice, a stable and reliable operation of the laser-electron accelerator with a dose rate exceeding 1 Gy/min was necessary. To achieve this, a sufficient number of electrons at energies in excess of 5 MeV had to be generated. The irradiation time for a single mouse was a few minutes. Furthermore, the particle pulses’ parameters needed to remain achievable for a time period of several weeks. Due to the online detection of the radiation dose, the unavoidable shot-to-shot fluctuations, currently still typical for laser-based particle accelerators, could be compensated. The results demonstrate that particle pulses generated with laser-based accelerators have the potential to be a future alternative for conventional particle accelerators used for the irradiation of tumors.     

电子束辐照下的注氘铝的结构变化

利用离子加速器在室温下对纯铝注入氘离子或氢离子,然后在透射电镜中对注氘铝或注氢铝中的气泡进行电子束辐照,发现在电子束辐照下气泡会长大、破裂.随着气泡的变化,选区电子衍射花样中出现了表示多晶存在的衍射环.这表明电子束辐照气泡时,发生某种放热现象,从而使附近的铝先熔化后再凝固,由单晶变为多晶.     

大回旋电子束双磁会切电子枪的设计

 分析了Ka波段二次谐波回旋行波管双磁会切电子枪的理论模型，计算了电子枪的设计参数；采用EGUN软件进行模拟，设计出了产生大回旋电子束的双磁会切电子枪。该枪电压为70 kV，电流为3.35 A，电子束横纵速度比为1.62，速度零散为4.2%。给出了电子束速度比、速度零散沿轴线的分布，进而讨论了阳极电压对电子束性能的影响，结果表明选择适当的阳极电压和阴极磁场对得到好的电子束参量作用明显。