Design of a superconducting rotating gantry for heavy-ion therapy

Abstract

A superconducting rotating gantry for heavy-ion therapy is being designed. This isocentric rotating gantry can transport heavy ions with the maximum energy of 430 MeV/u to an isocenter with irradiation angles of over 0–360 degrees, and is further capable of performing three-dimensional raster-scanning irradiation. The combined-function superconducting magnets will be employed for the rotating gantry. The superconducting magnets with optimized beam optics allow a compact gantry design with a large scan size at the isocenter; the length and the radius of the gantry will be approximately 13 and 5.5 m, respectively, which are comparable to those for the existing proton gantries. Furthermore, the maximum scan size at the isocenter is calculated to be as large as approximately 200 mm square for heavy-ion beams at the maximum energy of 430 MeV/u. Based on the design of the beam optics, specifications of the superconducting magnets were determined. The superconducting magnets and magnetic-field distributions are designed using a three-dimensional field solver. With the calculated magnetic fields, beam-tracking simulations were performed to verify the design of the superconducting magnets, and concurrently to evaluate the field quality. With calculated beam profiles at the isocenter, we found that the positions of beam spots as well as their size and shape could be well reproduced as designed, proving validity of our design.