A Millimeter-scale Single Charged Particle Dosimeter for Cancer Radiotherapy

This paper presents a millimeter-scale CMOS 64\(\times\)64 single charged particle radiation detector system for external beam cancer radiotherapy. A 1\(\times\)1 \(\mu m^2\) diode measures energy deposition by a single charged particle in the depletion region, and the array design provides a large detection area of 512\(\times\)512 \(\mu m^2\). Instead of sensing the voltage drop caused by radiation, the proposed system measures the pulse width, i.e., the time it takes for the voltage to return to its baseline. This obviates the need for using power-hungry and large analog-to-digital converters. A prototype ASIC is fabricated in TSMC 65 nm LP CMOS process and consumes the average static power of 0.535 mW under 1.2 V analog and digital power supply. The functionality of the whole system is successfully verified in a clinical 67.5 MeV proton beam setting. To our' knowledge, this is the first work to demonstrate single charged particle detection for implantable in-vivo dosimetry.