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.

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.

Methods and system for facilitating rapid radiation treatments are provided herein and relate in particular to radiation generation and delivery, electron source design, beam control and shaping/intensity-modulation. The methods and systems described herein are particularly advantageous when used with a compact high-gradient, very high energy electron (VHEE) accelerator and delivery system (and related processes) capable of treating patients from multiple beam directions with great speed, using all-electromagnetic or radiofrequency deflection steering is provided; or when used with a high-current electron accelerator system of energy range more conventionally used in photon radiation therapy to produce much faster delivery of intensity-modulated photon radiation therapy, that can in both cases deliver an entire dose or fraction of high-dose radiation therapy sufficiently fast to freeze physiologic motion, yet with an equal or better degree of dose conformity or sculpting compared to conventional photon therapy.

Ion beams are efficiently extracted with an accelerator that includes a circular vacuum container including a pair of circular return yokes facing each other. Six magnetic poles are radially disposed from the injection electrode at the periphery thereof in the return yoke. Six recessions are disposed alternately with the respective magnetic poles in the circumferential direction of the return yoke. In the vacuum container, a concentric trajectory region, in which multiple beam turning trajectories centered around the injection electrode are present, is formed, and an eccentric trajectory region, in which multiple beam turning trajectories eccentric from the injection electrode are present, is formed around the region. In the eccentric trajectory region, the beam turning trajectories are dense between the injection electrode and the inlet of the beam extraction path. Gaps between the beam turning trajectories are wide in a direction 180 opposite to the inlet of the beam extraction path.

An X-ray generation system is configured to generate an X-ray beam configured to be delivered to a patient undergoing radiation therapy. The X-ray generation system includes a linear accelerator system configured to generate an electron beam configured to impinge a target configured to respond to the incident electron beam by emitting an X-ray beam configured to deliver an X-ray dose rate to the patient in a range of 40 Gy/s to 1000 Gy/s within a treatment delivery window.

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.

A charged particle acceleration device, which eliminates the need for repeating alignment adjustment even in the case of repeating installation of the controllers, is provided, and a method for adjusting the same is provided. A charged particle acceleration device 10A includes: controllers 15,15a,15b,15c configured to control a beam trajectory 12 of charged particles that pass through a duct 11 to be inserted through the controllers 15; and a stage 20 that is supported by a frame 16 fixed to a base and reversibly moves the controllers 15 in a direction of intersecting the beam trajectory 12.

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.