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Abstract

Helium and carbon ions enable a more conformal dose distribution, narrower penumbra and higher relative biological effectiveness than photon and proton radiotherapy. However, they may undergo nuclear fragmentation in the patient tissues and the arising secondary fragments affect the delivered biological dose distributions. Currently there is a lack of data regarding ion nuclear fragmentation. One reason is the large size (up to some meters) of the experimental setups required for the investigations. In this thesis a new method is presented, which makes use of versatile pixelated semiconductor detectors (Timepix). This method is based on tracking of single particles and pattern recognition of their signals in the detectors. Measurements were performed at the HIT facility. The mixed radiation field arising from 430 MeV/u carbon ion beams and 221 MeV/u helium ion beams in water and in PMMA targets was investigated. The amounts of primary (carbon or helium) ions detected behind targets with the same water equivalent thickness (WET) were found to be in agreement within the statistical uncertainties. However, more fragments (differences up to 20% in case of H) and narrower lateral particle distributions were measured behind the PMMA than the water targets. The spectra of ions behind tissue surrogates and corresponding water targets with the same WET were analysed. The results obtained with adipose and inner bone surrogates and with the equivalent water phantoms were found to be consistent within the uncertainties. Significant differences in the results were observed in the case of lung and cortical bone surrogates when compared to the water phantoms. The experimental results were compared to FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations. This comparison could contribute to enhance the ion interaction models currently implemented for 12C and 4He ion beams.