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Medical Physics, Radiation Physics and Ion Beam Physics

"Picture of students doing a radiation experiment"


People

Dr Rick Franich, Senior Lecturer and Masters Program Co-ordinator

Dr Alex Merchant, Senior Lecturer

Dr Leah McDermott, Post-Doctoral fellow

Mr Michael Taylor, Research Fellow

Adjunct Professor Peter Johnston, Director, Environmental and Radiation Health, Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency

Adjunct Professor Tomas Kron, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Adjunct Associate Professor Annette Haworth, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Mr Trevor Ackerley, William Buckland Radiotherapy Centre


Medical Physics

Investigation and development of various aspects of radiotherapy physics including measurement and computer modelling of medical radiation and three-dimensional dosimetry. Numerous projects at hospitals in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia.

Radiation Physics

Measurements of alpha-, beta-, gamma-, X- and neutron radiation for many applications to environmental science (including the cleanup of former nuclear test sites), materials science and diagnostic facilities for industry.

Ion Beam Physics

RMIT Applied Physics has collaborative projects with MARC (University of Melbourne) to investigate Ion Beam Nanolithography and Proton Beam Writing. These projects allow the manufacture of very high aspect ratio structures at the nanoscale. The projects are supported by accelerator facilities in Melbourne and Sydney as well as excellent RMTI Microanalytical facilities and other Australian infrastructure.

Facilities

  • Access to 5 MeV proton microprobe at MARC at University of Melbourne.
  • Gamma-ray spectroscopy facilities with multi-parameter pulse height analysis capability
  • Monte Carlo modelling capability using BEAMnrc, EGSmrc, GEANT4 and SRIM based radiation transport codes
  • Optical CT apparatus for Gel Dosimetry
  • Access to Medical Physics facilities in several hospitals

Postgraduate Students

  • Michael Taylor, PhD student
  • Leon Dunn, PhD student
  • Martin Draganski, PhD student
  • Sean Turnbull, MAppSc student

Medical and Health Physics Master Students

  • Zakia Amuer
  • Andrew Howie
  • Daniel Badger
  • Jarrad Begg
  • Zoe Brady
  • Gehrke Christopher
  • Luke Clews
  • Lancaster Craig
  • Janelle D'Souza
  • Natalie Evans
  • Seval Hackett
  • Anna Hayton
  • Kevin Hickson
  • Jessica Lye
  • Madebo Mebratu
  • Michael Irvine
  • Kam Mong
  • Ajit Mullen
  • Ariel Nguyen
  • Janelle Prunster
  • Richard Short
  • Matthew So
  • Cameron Storm
  • Lindsay Tremethick
  • Liang Wang
  • May Whitaker

Projects

  • Radiation delivery to a moving target: A physical model for the detection and treatment of tumors affected by breathing motion.
  • Out of field dose in stereotactic radiotherapy.
  • Medical Physics projects with several hospitals including William Buckland Radiotherapy Centre and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
  • Ion beam lithography using single ions and nano-apertures
  • Large Angle Plural Scattering and Straggling Studies of Heavy Ions in Recoil Spectrometry
  • Project with Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency to determine the link between in-vivo Pb-210 and Radon gas exposure through in-vivo measurements
  • Collaboration with the Institute of Reference Materials and Measurements on a range of projects including ultra low-level gamma-ray spectrometry, the measurement of environmental neutron fluence at the earth’s surface by activation, in-vivo radioactivity, fundamental data in transmutation and decommissioning research, cosmic ray induced radioactivity in meteorites and methods for the calibration of various standards apparatus by radiation transport modelling
  • History of Maralinga: collaborative project with Maralinga Tjarutja, University of Adelaide and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency

Consulting Work

  • Maralinga Tjarutja: Prof. Johnston is the Senior Scientific Adviser to the traditional owners of the former nuclear weapons test sites at Maralinga and Emu, South Australia. Provision of advice on health physics, rehabilitation, technical and land use issues.
  • Prof. Johnston provided advice to the South Australian Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement: Advice to traditional landowners about the consequences of the National Radioactive Waste Repository.

Recent Publications

Book Chapters

‘Fundamentals of Radiation Physics', Jamie V. Trapp and Peter Johnston, Chapter 2 in ‘An Introduction to Radiation Protection in Medicine’, Editors Jamie V. Trapp and Tomas Kron, Published by Taylor and Francis (2008), ISBN: 9781584889649.

‘Radiation Detection and Simulation Methods’, Jamie V. Trapp and Peter Johnston, Chapter 4 in ‘An Introduction to Radiation Protection in Medicine’, Editors Jamie V. Trapp and Tomas Kron, Published by Taylor and Francis (2008), ISBN: 9781584889649.

‘Managing Radiation in the Workplace ', Peter Johnston, Jamie V. Trapp, and Tomas Kron, Chapter 5 in ‘An Introduction to Radiation Protection in Medicine’, Editors Jamie V. Trapp and Tomas Kron, Published by Taylor and Francis (2008), ISBN: 9781584889649.

Refereed Papers

‘Ion beam lithography using single ions’, A. Alves, P Reichart, R. Siegele, P.N. Johnston, D. N. Jamieson, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B249 (2006) 730-733.

‘Ion Transmission Through Nano-Apertures’, M L Taylor, R D Franich, A Alves, P Reichart, C Yang, D N Jamieson, P N Johnston, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B249 (2006) 752-755.

‘Focused Ion Beam Machined Nanostructures Depth Profiled by Macrochannelling Ion Beam Analysis’, S. Orbons, L van Dijk, M Bozkurt, P N Johnston, P Reichart, D N Jamieson, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B249 (2006) 747-751.

Cascade summing corrections in underground gamma-ray spectrometry, Peter N. Johnston, Mikael Hult and Joël Gasparro, Applied Radiation and Isotopes 64 (2006) 1323-1328.

A low-level activation technique for monitoring thermonuclear fusion plasma conditions, Joël Gasparro, Mikael Hult, Georges Bonheure and Peter N. Johnston, Applied Radiation and Isotopes 64 (2006) 1130-1135.

‘The Effect of Uncertainties in Nuclear Decay Data on Coincidence Summing Calculations for Gamma-Ray Spectrometry’, J. Gasparro, M. Hult, P.N. Johnston and H. Tagziria, Czechoslovak Journal of Physics 56, Suppl. D (2006) D203-D210.

‘Underground search for the decay of 180Tam’,Mikael Hult, Joël Gasparro, Gerd Marissens, Patric Lindahl, Uwe Wätjen, Peter N. Johnston, Cyriel Wagemans and Matthias Köhler, Physical Review C 74, 054311 (2006).

‘Characterization of ion tracks in PMMA for single ion lithography’, A. Alves, P.N. Johnston, P Reichart, D. N. Jamieson, R. Siegele, Nuclear Instruments and Methods B260: 431-436 (2007).

‘Ion Beam Lithograpy Using A Nano-Aperture’, M.L. Taylor, A. Alves, P. Reichart, R.D. Franich, S. Rubanov, P. Johnston, D.N. Jamieson, Nuclear Instruments and Methods B260:426-430 (2007).

‘In-Vitro Dissolution Studies of Uranium Bearing Material in Simulated Lung Fluid’, S. Sdraulig, R. D. Franich, R. Tinker, S. B. Solomon, R. O’Brien and P. N. Johnston, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 99 (2008) 527-538.

‘Systematic variations in polymer gel dosimeter calibration due to container influence and water non-equivalence’, ML Taylor, RD Franich, PN Johnston, RM Millar and JV Trapp, Physics in Medicine and Biology 52:3991-4005 (2007).

‘An experimental MOSFET approach to characterize 192Ir HDR source anisotropy’, WC Toye, KR Das, SP Todd, MB Kenny, RD Franich and PN Johnston, Physics in Medicine and Biology 52:5329-5339 (2007).

‘On the use of Mercury as a means of locating background sources in ultra low background HPGe detector systems’, M Hult, J Gasparro, P Lindahl, G Marissens, A Fessler and PN Johnston, Applied Radiation and Isotopes 66:829-834 (2008).

ML Taylor RD Franich, JV Trapp and PN Johnston,’ The effective atomic number of dosimetric gels’, Australasian Physical Sciences and Engineering in Medicine, 31:131-138 (2008).

Opportunities

In addition to Research Programs involving PhD, MAppSc and MAppSc (Medical and Health Physics) programs, there are opportunities or Honours students and we have a long history of taking international students for 3-12 month projects.