The Accelerator in a Suitcase for Isotope Replacement

Few-MeV linac-based X-ray machines are widely used for radiotherapy, cargo inspection, and industrial radiography. These machines are large, weighing several tons. Several years ago truck mounted systems extended the reach of this technology into field applications like bridge inspection. Recently man-portable systems were introduced, which typically are comprised of three modules that can be independently moved without heavy machinery and set up at the application location. Currently, there is no linac-based x-ray machine that can be carried around in a single compact piece to fit in tight spaces that can replace radioactive isotope - based devices in industrial radiography and well-logging. Euclid Beamlabs proposes an inexpensive, ultra-compact linac-based x-ray source that can fit in a suitcase as a possible replacement for radionuclides. This novel design is based on a dielectric accelerator. The use of ceramics makes the transverse size of the accelerating waveguide comparable to that of a pencil. Because of this size reduction, additional weight reduction of shielding becomes possible. In Phase I, based on this technology we have built and tested a 500 keV dielectric accelerator and additionally developed an engineering design of 1 MeV x-ray system ready for manufacturing in Phase II. This device will provide a novel functionality for the x-ray market. It will be compact and similar to the low-energy x-ray systems (e.g. dental x-ray). However, it will have higher energy x-rays due to a use of linac-based few-MeV electrons. Potential applications are radioactive isotopes replacement in radiography systems, active interrogation systems, and well logging.