A proton beam therapy system with a cantilever gantry. The cantilever gantry has one end portion (the fixed end portion) affixed to an external structure that supports the weight of the gantry. The remainder of the gantry is suspended and the free end portion is coupled to a beam nozzle. A main bearing is coupled to the fixed end portion and enables the gantry to rotate in a full range of 360 around the iso-center. A large counterweight can be disposed in the fixed end portion to keep the system center of mass close to the bearing. The gantry may have a monocoque housing, including a cantilever section enclosing the magnets and other components of the gantry beamline and a drum section on which the bearing is placed.

An example particle therapy system includes: a particle accelerator to output a beam of charged particles; and a scanning system to scan the beam across at least part of an irradiation target. An example scanning system includes: a scanning magnet to move the beam during scanning; and a control system (i) to control the scanning magnet to produce uninterrupted movement of the beam over at least part of a depth-wise layer of the irradiation target so as to deliver doses of charged particles to the irradiation target; and (ii) to determine, in synchronism with delivery of a dose, information identifying the dose actually delivered at different positions along the depth-wise layer.

Disclosed herein are superconducting gantry magnets that include multiple quadrupole winding sections placed in sequence on a curve such that the effective current direction is reversed between sections. This produces alternating quadrupole field regions along the length of the bend whose individual integral strengths can be tuned by the location of the current polarity transitions. A simple transition scheme to reverse the current between sections can be implemented to allow for the use of one continuous winding and power supply. Dipole windings can be included in the superconducting gantry magnets so that the magnets produce superposed dipole and alternating quadrupole fields. The disclosed design for the windings and transition scheme to reverse current polarity can be implemented for higher order multipoles as well.

Embodiments of systems, devices, and methods relate to selecting a raster profile for scanning a proton beam across a target. A raster profile is selected from among the plurality of plurality of possible raster profiles based on a value of a figure of merit. A beam is directed across the target surface to form a pattern that is repeated one or more times at different radial orientations to form a scanning profile. A target temperature is monitored while scanning the beam across the target surface according to the scanning profile. The scanning parameters are changeable to avoid target damaging, to improve thermal performance and to optimize particle loading.

A compact lightweight gantry for a proton therapy system that has a source-to-axis distance (SAD) of less than 2 m and can deliver a proton beam of superior quality. The reduced SAD leads to reduced requirements on the maximum magnetic fields that can be generated by the bend magnets in the gantry beamline. Correspondingly, lightweight bend magnets can be used. The various components in the gantry beamline are optimized to achieve a beam spot size of approximately 4 mm sigma or less through a pencil beam scanning nozzle disposed downstream of the final bending magnet. In addition, the proton therapy system is configured to operate at a maximum beam energy in the range of 220-230 MeV.

An optical characterization system is disclosed. The optical characterization system may comprise a synchrotron source, an optical characterization sub-system, and a sensor configured to receive a projected image from a set of imaging optics. The optical characterization sub-system may include at least the set of illumination optics, a set of imaging optics, and a diffractive optical element, a temporal modulator or an optical waveguide configured to match an etendue of a light beam output by the synchrotron source to the set of illumination optics. A method of matching the etendue of a light beam is also disclosed.

Embodiments of systems, devices, and methods relate to selecting a raster profile for scanning a proton beam across a target. A raster profile is selected from among the plurality of plurality of possible raster profiles based on a value of a figure of merit. A beam is directed across the target surface to form a pattern that is repeated one or more times at different radial orientations to form a scanning profile. A target temperature is monitored while scanning the beam across the target surface according to the scanning profile. The scanning parameters are changeable to avoid target damaging, to improve thermal performance and to optimize particle loading.

A movable gantry for delivery of a particle beam using beam scanning technique contains an inlet section for an accelerated particle beam having quadrupole magnets, first and second bending sections having dipole and quadrupole magnets for beam correction, a transfer section having quadrupole magnets for beam correction and a degrader and a last beam bending section having separate and/or combined dipole/quadrupole/higher order multipole magnets forming an achromatic section. All the magnets of the achromatic last bending section are located downstream of the degrader. Any dispersion in this achromatic last bending section is suppressed. A scanning section having two separate or one combined fast deflection magnets that deflect the beam at the iso-center in a direction perpendicular to the beam direction to perform lateral scanning is provided. A beam nozzle section is provided and has a beam nozzle.

A particle irradiation system includes three or more scanning magnets that scan a beam in a vertical direction (first direction) or a horizontal direction (second direction) perpendicular to each other. The three or more scanning magnets are configured such that the scanning magnets and the scanning magnets for scanning in the same direction between the vertical direction or the horizontal direction, are disposed in series on a progressing direction axis of a beam, and a volume of a magnetic field feeding region decreases as the scanning magnet is installed at a position farther from an isocenter on the progressing direction axis.

A particle therapy system capable of reducing the installation area and also suppressing a variation in the irradiation beam position is provided. A synchrotron generates a charged particle beam, and a beam delivery system irradiates an irradiation target with a charged particle beam extracted from the synchrotron thereby forming a radiation field. A rotating gantry is provided with the beam delivery system and is rotatable around the irradiation target. Dispersion measuring devices, each of which measures the dispersion of the charged particle beam at the position of the irradiation target at a plurality of rotation angles of the rotating gantry, are also provided. The orbit center of the charged particle beam extracted from the synchrotron and the rotation axis of the rotating gantry are located on substantially the same straight line.