The research into advanced acceleration concepts for electron linear accelerators being pursued at SLAC is reviewed. This research includes experiments in laser acceleration, plasma wakefield acceleration, and mmwavelength RF driven accelerators.

In the past decades circular and linear electron accelerators have been developed for clinical use in radiation therapy of tumors with the aim of achieving a high radiation dose in the tumor and as low as possible dose in the adjacent normal tissues. Today about one thousand accelerators are in medical use throughout the world and many hundred thousand patients are treated every day with accele...

The characteristics of activation after high-energy X-rays have been generated by medical linear accelerators were measured using an ionization chamber. Radiation doses increased with rising X-ray energy, based on 10 MV, 15 MV, and 18 MVX-ray measurements. When the total irradiation dose was changed, radiation dose increased with total irradiation dose. When the collimator opened, the radiation...

BACKGROUND Electron linear accelerators in medical radiotherapy have replaced cobalt and caesium sources of radiation. However, medical accelerators with photon energies over 10 MeV generate undesired fast neutron contamination in a therapeutic X-ray photon beam. Photons with energies above 10 MeV can interact with the atomic nucleus of a high-Z material, of which the target and the head of an ...

Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) is a technology that utilizes externally generated ionizing radiation to treat (a) defined target(s) in the head or spine without the need to make an incision. The target is defined by high-resolution stereotactic imaging. It uses multiple convergent beams aimed to the target. The beams deliver a maximal dose to the target (with precision of less than 1mm), while...

introduction: in recent decades, several monte carlo codes have been introduced for research and medical applications. these methods provide both accurate and detailed calculation of particle transport from linear accelerators. the main drawback of monte carlo techniques is the extremely long computing time that is required in order to obtain a dose distribution with good statistical accuracy. ...

Compared to conventional particle accelerators, plasmas can sustain accelerating fields that are thousands of times higher. To exploit this ability, massively parallel SciDAC particle simulations provide physical insight into the development of next-generation accelerators that use laser-driven plasma waves. These plasmabased accelerators offer a path to more compact, ultra-fast particle and ra...

Over the years, generation and acceleration of ultra-short, high quality electron beams has attracted more interest in accelerator science. Electron bunches with these properties are necessary to operate test novel diagnostics advanced high-gradient accelerating schemes, such as plasma accelerators dielectric laser accelerators. Furthermore, several medical industrial applications require high-...

Linear accelerators are the central components of the proposed next generation of linear colliders. They need to provide acceleration of up to 750 GeV per beam while maintaining very small normalized emittances. Standard simulation programs, mainly developed for storage rings, do not meet the specific requirements for high energy linear accelerators. We present a new program LIAR (”LInear Accel...