Real-time detection of fast and thermal neutrons in radiotherapy with CMOS sensors.

The peripheral dose distribution is a growing concern for the improvement of new external radiation modalities. Secondary particles, especially photo-neutrons produced by the accelerator, irradiate the patient more than tens of centimeters away from the tumor volume. However the out-of-field dose is still not estimated accurately by the treatment planning softwares.

FastPixN, a new integrated pixel chip for a future fast version of the IRSN - recoil proton telescope.

A first prototype of recoil proton telescope (RPT) is currently working at the AMANDE facility, being developed as a collaboration between IPHC Strasbourg and the LNE-IRSN. The device, able to measure both energy and fluence of neutron fields in the range of 5-20 MeV, has to be improved further, in order to reduce the considerable inelastic background generated by the neutrons inside the RPT itself. To achieve faster running cycles, the present complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor pixels used for proton tracking are to be replaced by a new integrated chip, specially developed for this application.

Fluence measurement of fast neutron fields with a highly efficient recoil proton telescope using active pixel sensors.

The spectrometer ATHENA (Accurate Telescope for High-Energy Neutron metrology Applications) is being developed at the LNE-IRSN and aims at characterising energy and fluence of fast neutron fields. The detector is a recoil proton telescope and measures neutron fields in the range of 5-20 MeV. This telescope is intended to become a primary standard for both energy and fluence measurements.

X-ray diagnostic calibration with the tabletop laser facility EQUINOX.

The broadband x-ray emission of a target irradiated by a laser can be used to check the calibration of detectors. At CEA-DIF we have a tabletop picosecond laser facility called EQUINOX with 0.3 J at 800 nm.

Efficient generation of narrow-bandwidth picosecond pulses by frequency doubling of femtosecond chirped pulses.

We demonstrate efficient generation of picosecond narrow-bandwidth pulses by frequency mixing of broadband opposite chirped pulses in a type I doubling crystal. This procedure allows us to produce picosecond pulses that are perfectly synchronized with femtosecond pulses. The experiment shows a decrease of the initial bandwidth by a factor of more than 30, while a high conversion efficiency is maintained.