An accelerator system and/or method is used to create radionuclides through particle bombardments of target elements by generating a collimated and focused energetic particle beam. The accelerator system and/or method is provided with an ion source, a main beam transport pipeline, a plurality of acceleration tanks, a plurality of beam tuning devices, a plurality of target transport pipelines, a plurality of magnet kickers, and a plurality of target chambers.

Disclosed is an apparatus for generating charged particles. The apparatus comprises a light source that emits a laser, a target layer that receives the laser to generate charged particles, and a focusing structure that is between the light source and the target source and focuses the laser. The focusing structure comprises solid layers and pore sections alternately and repeatedly disposed along a first direction parallel to a top surface of the target layer. Each of the pore sections comprises a porous layer.

When accelerating first ions, radio frequency power is fed to a drift tube linear accelerator so that the phase difference between an accelerating half cycle for accelerating the first ions in one of the plurality of drift tube gaps and the accelerating half cycle for accelerating the accelerated first ions reaching the next drift tube gap is set to a first accelerating cycle phase difference; and when accelerating second ions having a charge-to-mass ratio lower than the first ions, the radio frequency power is fed to the drift tube linear accelerator so that the phase difference between an accelerating half cycle for accelerating the second ions in the one drift tube gap and the accelerating half cycle for the accelerated second ions reaching the next drift tube gap is set to a second accelerating cycle phase difference that is larger than the first accelerating cycle phase difference.

Embodiments of the present invention disclose methods and systems for performing particle acceleration using a cyclotron RF resonator with an asymmetrical fixed tuner. A cyclotron RF resonator includes a single shorting plate tuner inside and a fixed short stem, and does not require top-bottom mirror symmetry. Small movements in relation to the wavelengths of the maximum acceleration voltage is bound by the capacitance of the accelerating surfaces. As such, the resonator may perform particle acceleration using asymmetrical tuning to reduce design complexity, cost of maintenance, fabrication and installation complexity, failure rate, and software complexity (e.g., control software), for example.

Disclosed is an apparatus for generating charged particles. The apparatus comprises a light source that emits a laser, a target layer that receives the laser to generate charged particles, and a focusing structure that is between the light source and the target source and focuses the laser. The focusing structure comprises solid layers and pore sections alternately and repeatedly disposed along a first direction parallel to a top surface of the target layer. Each of the pore sections comprises a porous layer.

Embodiments of systems, devices, and methods relate to an ion beam source system. An ion source is configured to provide a negative ion beam to a tandem accelerator system downstream of the ion source, and a modulator system connected to an extraction electrode of the ion source is configured to bias the extraction electrode for a duration sufficient to maintain acceleration voltage stability of the tandem accelerator system.

When accelerating first ions, radio frequency power is fed to a drift tube linear accelerator so that the phase difference between an accelerating half cycle for accelerating the first ions in one of the plurality of drift tube gaps and the accelerating half cycle for accelerating the accelerated first ions reaching the next drift tube gap is set to a first accelerating cycle phase difference; and when accelerating second ions having a charge-to-mass ratio lower than the first ions, the radio frequency power is fed to the drift tube linear accelerator so that the phase difference between an accelerating half cycle for accelerating the second ions in the one drift tube gap and the accelerating half cycle for the accelerated second ions reaching the next drift tube gap is set to a second accelerating cycle phase difference that is larger than the first accelerating cycle phase difference.

The invention comprises a method and apparatus for directing positively charged particles, comprising the steps of: (1) directing the positively charged particles along a beamline; (2) rotating a cantilevered rotatable gantry arm, both connected to a rotatable gantry support and supporting the beamline, about a horizontal rotation axis of the rotatable gantry support; and (3) countering torque, of at least the cantilevered rotatable gantry arm, about the rotation axis using a counterweight connected to the rotatable gantry support. Optionally, the gantry movement is used as part of rotating the rotatable gantry arm three hundred sixty degrees around an inner gantry arm side motion defined volume, which allows access to one side of a treatment room and the gantry arc swept volume, such as for entrance, mounting a patient positioning system, and/or for a ground based support structure.

A synchrotron injector system comprising a first ion source which generates a first ion, a second ion source which generates a second ion having a smaller charge-to-mass ratio than a charge-to-mass ratio of the first ion, a pre-accelerator having the capability to enable to accelerate both the first ion and the second ion, a low-energy beam transport line which is constituted in such a way to inject either the first ion or the second ion into the pre-accelerator, and a self-focusing type post-accelerator which accelerates only the first ion after acceleration which is emitted from the pre-accelerator.

The invention comprises a multi-axis charged particle irradiation method and apparatus. The multi-axis controls includes separate or independent control of one or more of horizontal position, vertical position, energy control, and intensity control of the charged particle irradiation beam. Optionally, the charged particle beam is additionally controlled in terms of timing. Timing is coordinated with patient respiration and/or patient rotational positioning. Combined, the system allows multi-axis and multi-field charged particle irradiation of tumors yielding precise and accurate irradiation dosages to a tumor with distribution of harmful proximal distal energy about the tumor.