"We need to achieve up to 10 times the current energy levels to really target deeper into the body. One of my ambitions is to help more people get access to proton therapy. Maybe that lies 30 years in the future, but every step forward is important," says Tünde Fülöp, Professor at the Department of Physics at Chalmers.
Accelerated protons are not only interesting for cancer treatment. They can be used to investigate and analyse different materials, and to make radioactive material less harmful. They are also important for the space industry. Energetic protons constitute a large part of cosmic radiation, which damages satellites and other space equipment. Producing energetic protons in the lab allows researchers to study how such damage occurs, and to develop new materials which can better withstand the stresses of space travel.
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Together with research colleague Evangelos Siminos at the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers researchers Julian Ferri and Tünde Fülöp used numerical simulations to show the feasibility of the method. Their next step is to conduct experiments in collaboration with Lund University.
"We are now looking at several ways to further increase the energy level in the proton beams. Imagine focusing all the sunlight hitting the Earth at a given moment onto a single grain of sand - that would still be less than the intensity of the laser beams that we are working with. The challenge is to deliver even more of the laser energy to the protons." says Tünde Fülöp.
The new scientific results have been published in the respected journal Communications Physics, part of the Nature family. Read the scientific article "Enhanced target normal sheath acceleration using colliding laser pulses".
The research has been financed by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, within the framework for the project "Plasma based compact ion sources". (Link in Swedish)
Other financiers include the European Research Council and the Swedish Research Council. The simulations have been done at the national data centre Chalmers Centre for computational Science and Engineering. (C3SE)
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