Medical physics

Particle accelerators exist in Ireland - in hospitals where they are used for producing radioactive isotopes and for cancer radiotherapy. Consequently, many of the tools and techniques from the LHC are applicable, not least the emerging technology of hadron therapy, literally a mini-LHC that fires protons into your body to kill tumours and preserve healthy tissue.

Recently we took one of the LHC detectors and placed it into a Linac beam at St. Luke's hospital in Dublin. We were able to detect individual electrons in the beam and view the 2 microsecond pulse in detail - the first time this has every been done. Our paper was published in Phys.Med.Biol. 66 (2021) 13, 135002