Design and optimisation of Microwave Linac Cavity for medical applications

Among all the disease which a person faces, Cancer is still considered the deadliest one. Over the years many new nuclear medicine techniques have been discovered which can not only detect the cancer even at the beginning stage but also treat them effectively. These techniques involve Electrons, Protons, Neutrons beams which are used to break DNA chain of cancerous cells. Among them electrons based machines called as “Electron Linac” are the most common ones & probably the cheapest ones. The heart of the machine is “Microwave Linac Cavity”, which imparts energy to the electron beam to produce high energy X ray beams. These in turn are used for the treatment of the cancer patients. This paper describes the design of the “Microwave Cavity” from the point of view of reducing the power consumption and hence effectively the cost of the Linac which in turn reduces the burden on the patient. Three half cells of the cavity were fabricated by using CNC machine and characterized for its microwave frequency, by using a Vector Network Analyser. The measured frequency was found to be...2.680 GHz as compared to the designed frequency of...2.687 GHz. This is well within the bandwidth of the microwave power source.