Proton Calorimetry/Experimental Runs/2025/Prague 2025-04
Experiment Equipment
| Item | Notes |
|---|---|
| Portable Enclosure | Modified Small Peli Case Wheeled. Features mount for scintillator stacks, front and back openings for beam, patch panel with ports. Mylar windows with 3D printed alignment plates: approximately light-tight. |
| Rev. E Scintillator stack 1 (with Rev. E boards no. 1 (L) and 4 (R)) | 32 X x 105 mm, Y x 105 mm and Z x (approx) 3 mm sheets (mix of opaque and machined sheets). |
| Rev. E Scintillator stack 2 (with Rev. E boards no. 3 (L) and 9 (R)) | 32 X x 105 mm, Y x 105 mm and Z x (approx) 3 mm sheets (just machined sheets with the closest to ideal thicknesses ~3mm). |
| Rev. E Scintillator stack 3 (with Rev. E boards no. 5 (L) and 6 (R)) | 32 X x 105 mm, Y x 105 mm and Z x (approx) 3 mm sheets (mix of opaque and machined sheets). |
| Rev. E Scintillator stack 4 (spare stack not installed) | 32 X x 105 mm, Y x 105 mm and Z x (approx) 3 mm sheets (mix of opaque, machined, and injection moulded sheets - stacked in pairs in alternating directions). |
| Rev. E Scintillator stack 5 (with Rev. E boards no. 7 (L) and 10 (R)) | 32 X x 105 mm, Y x 105 mm and Z x (approx) 3 mm sheets mix of opaque, machined, and injection moulded sheets - stacked in pairs in alternating directions). |
| Rev. E Texas Instruments DDC232 custom circuit board (x9 - 8 installed in modules 1,2,3,5 and one spare) | Housing 32x Hamamatsu S12915-16R photodiodes, coupled directly to scintillator sheets. Aligned by eye to scintillator sheets. |
| USB104 FPGA development board x 2 (1 main and 1 spare) | For interfacing between DDC232 and pi. |
| Raspberry pi5 x 2 (1 main and 1 spare) | Control data acquisition + visualise GUI. |
| Power Strip: | To connect FPGA and daughter board. |
| DAQ laptop x1 | Back up option for data acquisition. |
| Control Laptop x2 | 1 for remote control (Sonia's MacBook Pro), 1 for notes/web GUI (Joe's MacBook Pro). |
| D-LINK Network Hub | Set in experimental room to connect pi5, DAQ laptop + NPL devices |
| GL-Inet Router | Set in control room to take output from experimental room ethernet connection. Control laptops connected via ethernet or 5GHz WiFi. |
| Ethernet Cable x4 (?) | To connect pi5 and DAQ laptop to network in the experimental room, hub to wall and in control room router to wall, and router to laptop. |
| MacBook Adapters x2: one for pi5 DAQ laptop one for DAQ laptop | |
| Spare Cables: | Usb-C flexible cables, USB-C corded cables (and right-angles angled connector), USB-C to USB-A adapter, USB-C to USB-B adaptor, USB-A to USB-B cable, right-angles network cables. power cables |
| Gloves | For handling scintillator |
Schematic
Experiment Plan
Saturday 26th April
1) Shoot-through of each scintillator stack at 250 MeV to check prior calibration. 50mm absorber (?) -> scint stack -> water dump/IBA Zebra or Giraffe for simultaneous WET measurement. Both directions for stack so will rotate midway through.
2) Background measurement of scintillator stacks 1 - 5 (exc. 4 which is spare module)
-- UCL: Add calibration files to appropiate file for GUI
3) Rotate gantry to front of case. Full system check at 245 MeV with beam on axis.
4) Single spot SOBP across the entire range of energies that can be obtained from the nozzle. Beam on axis.
5) Single spot SOBP from 165 MeV to 120 MeV. Beam on axis.
3) 5 x 5 x 5cm box field, on axis from 12cm to 17cm deep.
4) Single layer with 5 x 5 grid of spots, 1cm spacing, with single spot dwell time of 500ms–1s
30,000 measurements ~ 5 secs for pristine Bragg peaks/shoot throughs.
1-2 mins per SOBP.
Experiment Notes
Original data will be saved in pi5: /home/pi/GUI/v3.01b/
A copy ot the hexadecimal files will be saved to: /unix/pbt/data/
For each run ... files will be generated:
- Run0xy.txt: raw hexadecimal data
- RunOxy_calibrated.txt: calibrated data with background subtraction. An average measurement is at the bottom with a run performed to it. Visualisation with acquisition on DAQ.html
- Run0xy_fitted_25Hz.txt: data averaged at 25Hz and fitted, with range and energy values extracted. This can be visualised in the REPLAY.html tab of the GUI.
- 50mm solid water absorber installed in front of QuARC for shoot-through calibration measurements?
| Run number | Stack No. | Beam Energy (MeV) | Current (nA) | Measurements | DDC232 FSR (pC) | DDC232 Integration Time (us) | Spot size (mm, FWHM) | Estimated Range (mm) | Comments | Photodiode QB Fit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday 26/04/2025 | |||||||||||
| Machine QA Mode | |||||||||||
| 0 | No stack - just peli case | 245MeV (shoot through front) | 8 nA (?) | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | Without 50 mm solid water absorber | - | |
| 1 | Stack #1 | 245MeV (shoot through front) | 8 nA (?) | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | Without 50 mm solid water absorber and beam on time too short so only reading background for last measurmements | - | |
| 2 | Stack #1 | 245MeV (shoot through front) | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | With 50 mm solid water absorber and beam mode changed to continuous 9i.e. beam on before starting and after ending measurements) at clinical current (8 nA) | - | |
| 3 | Stack #1 | 245MeV (shoot through front) | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | repeat of run002 - zebra measurement: 16.76 cm | - | |
| 4 | Stack #1 | background (back pos.) | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | - | |||
| 5 | Stack #1 | 245MeV (shoot through back) | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | zebra measurement: 16.76 cm | - | |
| 6 | Stack #2 | 245MeV (shoot through front) | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | note dead photodiode on centre of left board zebra measurement: 16.68 cm | - | |
| 7 | Stack #2 | background (back) | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | - | ||
| 8 | Stack #2 | shoot through back | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | - | ||
| 8 | Stack #2 | background front | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | - | ||
| 10 | Stack #3 | shoot through front | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | zebra measurement: cm | - | |
| 11 | Stack #3 | background back | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | - | |||
| 12 | Stack #3 | shoot through back | 8 nA | 30000 | 12.5 | 170 (constant) | - | - | zebra measurement: cm | - | |