Abstract

With the continuous advances in the development of high-intensity lasers, laser-driven ion acceleration may become a compact alternative to produce ions with energies suitable for medical applications [1]. However, the unique properties of laser-accelerated ions, such as the mixed radiation field, a broad energy spectrum of up to 100% energy spread and ion fluxes exceeding 10⁷ protons / cm² / ns are a challenge for electronic detectors. Due to relatively large shot-to-shot fluctuations in the energy spectrum, a non-destructive characterization of each ion bunch is necessary for reliable biomedical applications. Our approach to obtain the spectra exploits the time-of-flight (TOF) difference of ions with different kinetic energies, which requires fast and sensitive detectors.

© 2017 IEEE