Design, integration, and commissioning of the first linac for image guided hadron therapy prototype

The Linac for Image Guided Hadron Therapy (LIGHT) system has been developed as the first commercial high-frequency linac-based proton therapy accelerator system. As part of the development process and of the technical validation of the concept, a reduced energy prototype linac (including all the key functional aspects of the full energy accelerator) has been designed and tested in parallel with the preparation work for a full-scale system. The LIGHT prototype construction, installation, and commissioning with beam allowed the identification of technical gaps and design improvements before the transfer to a medical device implementation. This paper gives a comprehensive summary of the design and integration aspects and presents for the first time the results achieved with the LIGHT prototype that was installed and commissioned on CERN premises in the years 2015–2019.