Nanosecond pulsed proton microbeam

Abstract We show the preparation of a pulsed 20 MeV proton beam at the Munich tandem accelerator which offers a fluence of more than 1 × 10 9  protons/cm 2 being deposited in a beam spot smaller than 100 μm in diameter and within a time span of 0.9 ns fwhm. Such a beam is produced by an ECR type proton source using charge exchange in cesium vapor to obtain a beam of negative hydrogen of high brightness that is bunched, chopped, accelerated and then focused by the superconducting multipole lens of the microprobe SNAKE. Single beam pulses are generated in order to irradiate cell samples or tissue and to measure their biological effect in comparison to continuous proton or X-ray irradiation.