PhD Success!

Congratulations to Joseph Bateman who successfully defended his thesis, titled "VHEE Dosimetry in a FLASH: Ultrahigh Dose Rate Dosimetry and Real-time Beam Monitoring for Very High Energy Election FLASH Radiotherapy".

My research aimed to address the challenge of dosimetry of Very High Energy Electron (VHEE) beams at the ultrahigh dose rates (UHDR) required for FLASH radiotherapy. Ionisation chambers and other detectors that are used for radiotherapy dosimetry at conventional dose rates saturate at the UHDR conditions needed for FLASH. This saturation is more pronounced for VHEE beams due to their pulsed delivery and ultra-short pulse lengths compared to other radiotherapy modalities, therefore new technology is needed. My work included Monte Carlo simulations to investigate secondary particle production following VHEE beam irradiation and how these particles could be used to indirectly monitor the dose. Furthermore, I worked on establishing and optimising a dosimetry protocol at the CLEAR Facility using radiochromic film - this has been used for numerous VHEE FLASH radiobiological and detector studies. Lastly I developed and tested a novel silica fibre array detector for monitoring the VHEE beam profile and dose at ultrahigh dose rates at the CLEAR facility.

From left to right: external examiner Prof. Steinar Stapnes, Joseph Bateman, supervisor Prof. Manjit Dosanjh, internal examiner Prof. Emmanuel Tsesmelis