This disclosure provides systems, methods, and apparatus related to laser plasma accelerators. In one aspect a block of material defines a gas inlet, a chamber in fluid communication with the gas inlet, a throat in fluid communication with the chamber, a channel in fluid communication with the throat, and a gas outlet in fluid communication with the channel. The throat is configured to generate a supersonic flow of a gas when the gas flows through the throat. The channel includes a ramp that is positioned proximate the gas outlet, with the ramp being inclined at an angle with respect to a direction of a flow of the gas proximate a surface of the channel prior to the ramp at the gas outlet.

Normal tissue complications limit curative broadbeam radiotherapy to tumors including lung cancer. Radiation retinitis causing blindness limits quality of life and long term survival for patients with ocular melanoma. This invention pertains to alternative, normal tissue sparing 100 to 1,000 Gy microbeam radiations with least normal tissue complications and concomitant radio-immunotherapy by innate immune response of epidermis and dermis to low dose radiation with 50 kV X-rays. Total body skin radiation with former airport passenger screening machines with 50 kV X-ray is disclosed. Microbeams are generated without contaminating scatter and neutron radiations from collinear gamma ray and electron beam produced by inverse Compton interaction with high energy laser and electron beam and from proton and carbon ion beams in tissue equivalent cylindrical collimators. Extracorporeal immunotherapy and chemotherapy and apheresis of mutated subcellular particles released into circulation in response to cancer-therapies are by clinical continuous flow ultracentrifugation combined chromatography.

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.

Systems for generating a proton beam include an electromagnetic radiation beam (e.g., a laser) that is directed onto an ion-generating target by optics to form the proton beam. At least one processor is configured to control the source of the electromagnetic radiation and the optics to alter the energy, polarization, spatial profile, and/or the temporal profile of the electromagnetic radiation beam, and to adjust the flux and/or energy of the proton beam. In some instances the system may adjust the proton beam energy while holding the proton beam flux substantially constant, or alternatively adjust the proton beam flux while holding the proton beam energy substantially constant. In other instances the system may adjust the proton beam energy while varying the proton beam flux, and/or adjust the proton beam flux while varying the proton beam energy.

Presented systems and methods facilitate efficient and effective monitoring of particle beams. In some embodiments, a radiation gun system comprises: a particle beam gun that generates a particle beam, and a gun control component that controls the gun particle beam generation characteristics, including particle beam fidelity characteristics. The particle beam characteristics can be compatible with FLASH radiation therapy. Resolution control of the particle beam generation can enable dose delivery at an intra-pulse level and micro-bunch level. The micro-bunch can include individual bunches per each 3 GHz RF cycle within the 5 to 15 sec pulse-width. The FLASH radiation therapy dose delivery can have a bunch level resolution of approximately 4.410{circumflex over ()}-6 cGy/bunch.

A treatment device includes a pulsed particles accelerator and a processor for controlling the latter to deliver a treatment plan by deposition at HDR of charged particles into a flash volume (Vht) by PBS. To shorten the time for depositing a target dose (Dti) into the cells spanned by the flash spots (Si) of the flash volume (Vht), the flash spots are combined into k sets of n flash spots (Si). After depositing a j.sup.th pulse dose (Dij) into the cells spanned by a i.sup.th flash spot (Si) the beam commutes from the ith flash spot (Si) to a next (i+1)th flash spot according to a flash scanning subsequence to deposit a jth dose into the cells spanned by each of the subsequent flash spots of the flash scanning subsequence, until returning to the ith flash spot to deposit a (j+1)th dose (Di(j+1)), and so on When all the cells spanned by all the flash spots of a set have received their corresponding target dose, the beam moves to a next set of combined flash spots and repeats the foregoing pulse deposition steps.

According to an embodiment, a particle beam treatment system has: a CT device that is a three-dimensional image acquisition part installed in a treatment room for acquisition of a three-dimensional internal image on a day of treatment; a dose distribution display part that displays a dose distribution in the three-dimensional image acquired on the day of treatment and a dose distribution in treatment plan data designed in advance; a treatment management device that is a selection part to select whether or not to change the treatment plan data based on the dose distribution in the three-dimensional image acquired on the day of treatment and the dose distribution in treatment plan data designed in advance; and an irradiation part that irradiates an affected part with a particle beam according to the treatment plan data based on selection made by the treatment management device.

Provided herein is a light transmitting cable for laser treatment, the cable including a first optical fiber configured to generate a high energy particle by a laser beam transmitted from a light source and to transmit the high energy particle to a target; and an image transmitting cable configured to transmit an image surrounding the target, thereby being capable of treating a tumor with relatively low power output while identifying a location of the tumor.

A remote diagnostic monitoring of operating states for physical components of a particle accelerator system includes generating, by at least one processor, a component hierarchy corresponding to a physical arrangement of one or more physical components of a particle emitting system and including corresponding operating indicators of operating states of the physical components, identifying, by the at least one processor, a faulted physical component among the physical components, identifying, by the at least one processor, one or more fault path components among the physical components, the fault path components corresponding to a portion of the physical arrangement associated with the faulted physical component, and modifying, by the at least one processor, the operating indicators of the fault path components to fault state indicators.

Disclosed is a method of determining information regarding the location of energy deposition of an ion beam, in particular a proton beam, in an absorptive medium, in particular in the tissue of a patient undergoing radiation therapy, comprising the following steps: generating an intensity modulated ion beam, wherein the intensity modulation comprises one or more modulation frequency components, detecting an acoustic signal attributable to the time dependent energy deposition in said absorptive medium by said intensity modulated ion beam using at least one detection apparatus, said detection apparatus being preferably configured for extracting at least one modulation frequency component of the acoustic signal corresponding to a respective one of the one or more modulation frequency components of said intensity modulation, or a harmonic thereof, and deriving information regarding the location of the energy deposition based, at least in part, on a time lag between the timing of the intensity modulation of said ion beam and said acoustic signal.