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To increase the beam intensity of cyclotrons used for producing radionuclides, beam loss during extraction must be reduced. Extraction efficiency is limited by the beam parameters in front of the deflector, especially angular distribution. Computer simulation of the second harmonic mode for 18 MeV protons, which is frequently used, has been carried out to understand beam behavior in a cyclotron. The extraction efficiency is determined by the width of the angular distribution of particles in the phase space plot at the deflector. An effective method to reduce the width is to shorten the bunch at injection. The simulation shows that the bunch phase length at injection must be ⩽30° to realize a 30 μA extraction beam current and satisfy the deflector heat limit of 200 W.

A singly charged ion source (SCIS) has been designed using a newly developed three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) code. The SCIS is to be used in an isotope separation on-line (ISOL) system that provides 11C ions for heavy-ion cancer therapy with simultaneous verification of the dose distribution using positron emission tomography. The SCIS uses low-energy electron beams to produce singly charged carbon ions efficiently and maintain a high vacuum in the ISOL system. Because the SCIS has to realize a production efficiency of 1% if its carbon ions are to be used in the ISOL system, a suitable design for the SCIS was investigated by using the developed PIC code to study the beam trajectories of the electrons and extracted ions. The simulation results show that hollow electron beams are produced in the designed SCIS resulting in a high effective electron current. The results also predict that the designed SCIS would realize ion-production efficiencies (IPEs) of eSCIS ≃ 6.7% for CO2+ production from CO2 gas and eSCIS ≃ 0.1% for C+ production from CH4 gas. Moreover, to examine the validity of the developed code and confirm that the SCIS was able to be designed appropriately, the space-charge-limited current of the electron gun and the total IPE obtained by adding the IPEs of each ion were compared between the experiment and the simulation.

This study describes measurements on secondary particles produced by a 290 MeV/n Spread Out Bragg Peak (SOBP) carbon beam. Microdosimetric distributions of secondary fragments from the SOBP carbon beam have been measured by using a new tissue equivalent proportional counter (TEPC) system at the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences. The new TEPC system consists of a TEPC, two solid-state detectors (SSD) and a scintillation counter (FSC: forward scintillation counter). The SSDs and FSC can separately identify charged fragments and secondary neutrons produced by the incident carbon ions. Microdosimetric distributions were measured for secondary particles including neutrons produced by a body-simulated phantom consisting of various PMMA plates (thickness: 0, 34.81, 55.2, 60.95, 64.83, 95.03, 114.79, 124.69, 135.2 and 144.98 mm, respectively) to cover the SOBP (at 60-125 mm depth). The new system can separately determine produced fragments from the incident SOBP carbon beam in a body-simulated phantom.

The quality of high-temperature superconductors (HTSs) is rapidly increasing, and they can be used in power systems such as SMES systems and in industries as Si single-crystal growth pullers. In the future, HTS conductors are expected to be used for the magnets in nuclear fusion reactors or accelerators. In such applications, HTS conductors will be exposed to radiation. As a result, HTS conductors become radioactive making the operation and maintenance of the reactors or accelerators difficult; this also leads to an increase in the amount of nuclear waste generated. Therefore, we carry out experiments on the radiation damage in HTS conductors to study the characteristics of HTS conductors in radiation environments and to create an industrial database of the radiation effects on HTSs. We also carry out radioactive analyses on HTS conductors in order to clarify the relationship between the irradiation dose and the activity of HTS conductors. In this study, we prepared YBCO and Bi-2223 tapes and carried out the following preliminary experiments: (a) irradiation of the sample HTS tapes with 2-MeV neutrons at room temperature without transport current and (b) study of neutron-induced radioactivity by gamma-ray spectrometry using a Ge detector after the irradiation.

A compact injector for a heavy-ion medical-accelerator complex was developed. It consists of an electron-cyclotron-resonance ion-source (ECRIS) and two linacs, which are a radio-frequency-quadrupole (RFQ) linac and an Interdigital H-mode drift-tube-linac (IH-DTL). Beam acceleration tests of the compact injector were performed, and the designed beam quality was verified by the measured results, as reported earlier. Because the method of alternating-phase-focusing (APF) was used for beam focusing of the IH-DTL, the motion of beam ions would be sensitive to gap-voltage errors, caused during tuning of the gap-voltage distribution and by automatic-frequency tuning in actual operation. To study the effects of voltage errors to beam quality, further measurements were performed during acceleration tests. In this report, the effects of voltage errors for the APF IH-DTL are discussed.

Clinical trials of carbon radiotherapy started at HIMAC in 1994 using three treatment rooms and four beam ports, two horizontal and two vertical. The broad beam method was adopted to make a three-dimensionally uniform field at an isocenter. A spot beam extracted from an accelerator was laterally spread out by using a pair of wobbler magnets and a scatterer. A bar ridge filter modulated the beam energy to obtain the spread out Bragg peak (SOBP). The SOBP was designed to be flat in terms of the biological dose based on the consideration that the field consisted of various beams with different LET. Finally, the field of 20 cm in diameter with +/- 2.5% uniformity was formed at the isocenter. The width of the maximum SOBP was 15 cm. When treating the lung or liver, organs that move due to breathing, the beam was irradiated only during the expiration period in a respiration-gated irradiation method. This reduced the treatment margin of the moving target. In order to prevent normal tissues adjacent to the target volume from irradiation by an unwanted dose, a layer-stacking method was developed. In this method, thin SOBP layers which have different ranges were piled up step by step from the distal end to the entrance of the target volume. At the same time, a multi-leaf collimator was used to change the aperture shape to match the shape of each layer to the cross-sectional shape of the target. This method has been applied to rather large volume cancers including bone and soft-tissue cancers. Only a few serious problems in the irradiation systems have been encountered since the beginning of the clinical trials. Overall the systems have been working stably and reliably.

For atomic force microscope (AFM) observations of minute tracks ( ⩽1 μ m) in the CR-39 track detector, an accurate method to measure an extremely small amount of bulk etch is required. A simple method for direct measurements of the bulk etch using AFM was developed. Before the etching, a part of the CR-39 surface was covered with epoxy adhesive resin. The amount of bulk etch was measured as a level difference between the etched surface and the unetched original surface which has been covered with epoxy resin during its chemical etching processing. The details of this method are reported and its limitations are discussed in comparison to a conventional measuring method using tracks of fission fragments.

Fracture Toughness of HIP-sintered silicon nitride decreased with increasing temperature up to 1200°C. The brittle-to-ductile transition was observed in the temperature range from 1200°C to 1275°C: the fracture toughness rapidly increased in the transition region. Above the transition temperature, the fracture toughness decreased with increasing temperature. Fracture toughness of sialon increased with increasing temperature. Transition of fracture mechanism was observed in sialon around 1300°C. The differences of temperature dependence of fracture toughness between two materials are interpreted in terms of the effects of grain-boundary glass phase on fracture.

An international intercomparison of integrating detectors was conducted at NIRS (National Institute of Radiological Science, Japan) with a 24.4 m3 inner volume walk-in radon chamber that has systems to control radon concentration, temperature and humidity. During the first intercomparison (05.2007) four groups participated from four countries and for the second intercomparison (10.2007) 17 participants were involved from 11 countries. Most of detectors are in good agreement with each other when compared to the radon level provided by the radon chamber. It appeared that the 70% of detectors are unified within the 20% margin of uncertainty.

Passive detectors used for large‐scale and long‐term surveys are generally calibrated in a well‐controlled environment such as a radon chamber. It has been also pointed out that some of them are sensitive to thoron. Thus it is necessary to check the thoron contribution to the detector response with the proposed or similar test before practical use. The NIRS accommodates radon/aerosol and thoron chambers for quality assurance and quality control of radon measurements. Thus both chambers work so well that they can supply us with the calibration technique and consequently, a good level of knowledge of the radon and thoron issue.

For quality assurance, gas‐filled ionization chamber method was tested at two reference facilities for radon calibration: EML (USA) and PTB (Germany). Consequently, the radon concentrations estimated by the ionization chamber method were in good agreement with the reference radon concentrations provided by EML as well as PTB.

For magnetic alloy (MA) loaded rf accelerating cavity, we have developed an indirect cooling system, which is effective for retaining its shunt impedance by cooling only one side of the MA cores. Because of its low-$Q$ high-permeability property, MA cores are suitable for constructing untuned broadband accelerating systems. Since these same cores are made of wound thin tape, the key to establishing an untuned broadband cavity with effective indirect cooling method is to suppress the reduction of core impedance when attaching metallic cooling plates to the core and keeping a good thermal contact between them. We have employed indium bonding to thermally connect both cores and cooling plates. Both cooling and endurance tests have demonstrated its successful results.

Since silicon nitride is hard to sinter, it is general to sinter with small amounts of sintering aids, such as Al2O3 and Y2O3. Therefore, very thin glass phase formed at the grain boundary has an influence on high temperature mechanical properties of sintered silicon nitride. Silicon nitride is one of major candidate materials for potential structural components in high-performance turbine application. In service, components in turbine application may be subjected to loading at elevated temperatures. It is, therefore, essential to gain detailed understanding of fracture behavior at elevated temperatures. From this viewpoint, the characteristics of high temperature strength 1–5 and creep strength 6–9 have been actively investigated lately for silicon nitride in comparison with other ceramic materials. However, the detailed fracture behavior of silicon nitride including the influence of intergranular glass phase at elevated temperatures has not always been obvious.