Compact accelerator concept for proton therapy

A new type of compact induction accelerator is under development at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that promises to increase the average accelerating gradient by at least an order of magnitude over that of existing induction machines. The machine is based on the use of high gradient vacuum insulators, advanced dielectric materials and switches and is being developed as a compact flash X-ray radiography source. Research describing an extreme variant of this technology aimed at proton therapy for cancer will be presented. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.