Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 15, 2026

Expedited Radiation Biodosimetry by Automated Dicentric Chromosome Identification ADCI and Dose Estimation
Published on: September 4, 2017
Nanodosimetric descriptors of the radiation quality of carbon ions
V Conte1, D Moro2, P Colautti2
1LNL-INFN, viale dell'Università 2, Legnaro I-35020, Italy conte@lnl.infn.it.
Abstract:
In view of the emerging interest of carbon ions in radiotherapy and of the strong correlation between the track structure and the radiobiological effectiveness of ionising radiations, the track-structure properties of (12)C-ions were studied at particle energies close to the Bragg peak. To perform the investigations, ionisation-cluster-size distributions for nanometre-sized target volumes were measured with the track-nanodosimeter installed at the TANDEM-ALPI accelerator complex at LNL, and calculated using a dedicated Monte Carlo simulation code. The resulting cluster-size distributions are used to derive particular descriptors of particle track structure. Here, the main emphasis is laid on the mean ionisation-cluster size M1 and the cumulative probability Fk of measuring cluster sizes ν ≥ k. From the radiobiological point of view, Fk is of particular interest because an increasing k corresponds to an increase of damages of higher complexity. In addition, Fk saturates with increasing radiation quality like radiobiological cross sections as a function of linear energy transfer. Results will be presented and discussed for (12)C-ions at 96 and 240 MeV.
Related Concept Videos
Biological Effects of Radiation
¹³C NMR: ¹H–¹³C Decoupling
A broadband decoupling technique is used to simplify these complex, sometimes overlapping, signals. Broadband decoupling relies on a...
Radiation: Applications
The average...
Atomic Radii and Effective Nuclear Charge
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Lab
High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS)

