Scintillator screen for measuring low-dose halo in scanning carbon-ion therapy

To ensure safe administration and quality assurance (QA) of scanning carbon-ion therapy doses, an efficient and reliable method to measure the lateral dose profile of a carbon-ion pencil beam, including the low-dose halo, is required. We developed a simple, expeditious dose measurement tool that employs a silver-activated zinc sulfide (ZnS) scintillator, which shows a low linear energy transfer (LET) dependency, to measure the low-dose halo of a carbon-ion pencil beam with high spatial resolution.