Disclosed herein is a transportable
beamline (100, 200) for
ion beam
irradiation, in particular
small animal ion beam
irradiation, and a method (700) of aligning a transportable
beamline. The
beamline (100, 200) is configured to receive an
ion beam (102), in particular a
proton beam, from an
ion beam source and to guide the
ion beam (102) along a beam path (104) to a target point (106) that is to be irradiated. The beamline (100, 200) comprises: an energy degrader (108, 500) for decelerating ions in the
ion beam (102); a
collimator (110, 400) for collimating the ion beam (102); a focusing
assembly (112) for focusing the ion beam (102), the focusing
assembly (112) being arranged downstream of the energy degrader (108, 500) and the
collimator (110, 400) along the beam path (104) for the ion beam (102) and comprising two or more
quadrupole magnets (112A-C) arranged along the beam path (104); and a
common base structure (114) to which at least the
collimator (110, 400) and the focusing
assembly (112) are mounted, the
common base structure (114) being configured to preserve relative alignment between the collimator (110, 400) and the two or more
quadrupole magnets (112A-C) during transport of the beamline (100, 200), wherein some or all of said two or more
quadrupole magnets (112A-C) are removably mounted to the
common base structure (114) via a respective kinematic
mount (116, 300).