Piezo elements as driving units for leafs of multi-leaf collimators (MLC)

Currently, multi leaf collimators (MLC) are established and state of the art in numerous devices for radiotherapy used for cancer treatment. However, the established MLC comprising 80 and more leafs require an enormous space at the level of the leaves for corresponding drive and controlling elements if realized with normal electric motors. Since space is very limited within the head of linear accelerators the invention proposes a new small and convenient driving/controlling device based on piezoelectricity, which is directly coupled to the leaves and their driving rods.

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DKFZ (German Cancer Research Center, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum)
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Dr. Ruth Herzog

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