Dosimetric characterisation and application to radiation biology of a kHz laser-driven electron beam

TL;DR

This study characterizes a kHz laser-driven electron beam for radiation biology, demonstrating its stability and potential for in-vitro cancer cell irradiation, with results aligning with existing literature.

Contribution

It provides the first dosimetric characterization of a kHz laser-driven electron source and applies it to cancer cell irradiation experiments.

Findings

Beam stability confirmed through shot-to-shot dosimetry.

Survival assays consistent with previous studies.

Demonstrated feasibility for biological applications.

Abstract

Laser-plasma accelerators can produce ultra short electron bunches in the femtosecond to picosecond duration range, resulting in high peak dose rates in comparison with clinical accelerators. This peculiar characteristic motivates their application to radiation biology studies to elucidate the effect of the high peak dose rate on the biological response of living cells, which is still being debated. Electron beams driven by kHz laser systems may represent an attractive option for such applications, since the high repetition rate can boost the mean dose rate and improve the stability of the delivered dose in comparison with J-class laser accelerators running at 10 Hz. In this work, we present the dosimetric characterisation of a kHz, low energy laser-driven electron source and preliminary results on in-vitro irradiation of cancer cells. A shot-to-shot dosimetry protocol enabled to monitor the beam stability and the irradiation conditions for each cell sample. Results of survival assays on HCT116 colorectal cancer cells are in good agreement with previous findings reported in literature and validate the robustness of the dosimetry and irradiation protocol.