Francesca Borgna

A preliminary study for the production of high specific activity radionuclides for nuclear medicine obtained with the isotope separation on line technique

Radiopharmaceuticals represent a fundamental tool for nuclear medicine procedures, both for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. The present work aims to explore the Isotope Separation On-Line (ISOL) technique for the production of carrier-free radionuclides for nuclear medicine at SPES, a nuclear physics facility under construction at INFN-LNL. Stable ion beams of strontium, yttrium and iodine were produced using the SPES test bench (Front-End) to simulate the production of 89Sr, 90Y, 125I and 131I and collected with good efficiency on suitable targets.

Spes: An intense source of Neutron-Rich Radioactive Beams at Legnaro

The Isotope Separation On-Line (ISOL) method for the production of Radioactive Ion Beams (RIB) is attracting significant interest in the worldwide nuclear physics community. Within this context the SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) RIB facility is now under construction at INFN LNL (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro). This technique is established as one of the main techniques for high intensity and high quality beams production. The SPES facility will produce n-rich isotopes by means of a 40 MeV proton beam, emitted by a cyclotron, impinging on a uranium carbide multi-foil fission target. The aim of this work is to describe the most important results obtained by the study of the on-line behavior of the SPES production target assembly. This target system will produce RIBs at a rate of about 1013 fissions per second, it will be able to dissipate a total power of up to 10 kW, and it is planned to work continuously for 2 week-runs of irradiation. ISOL beams of 24 different elements will be produced, therefore a target and ion source development is ongoing to ensure a great variety of produced isotopes and to improve the beam intensity and purity.

Early Evaluation of Copper Radioisotope Production at ISOLPHARM

The ISOLPHARM (ISOL technique for radioPHARMaceuticals) project is dedicated to the development of high purity radiopharmaceuticals exploiting the radionuclides producible with the future Selective Production of Exotic Species (SPES) Isotope Separation On-Line (ISOL) facility at the Legnaro National Laboratories of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN-LNL). At SPES, a proton beam (up to 70 MeV) extracted from a cyclotron will directly impinge a primary target, where the produced isotopes are released thanks to the high working temperatures (2000 °C), ionized, extracted and accelerated, and finally, after mass separation, only the desired nuclei are collected on a secondary target, free from isotopic contaminants that decrease their specific activity. A case study for such project is the evaluation of the feasibility of the ISOL production of 64Cu and 67Cu using a zirconium germanide target, currently under development. The producible activities of 64Cu and 67Cu were calculated by means of the Monte Carlo code FLUKA, whereas dedicated off-line tests with stable beams were performed at LNL to evaluate the capability to ionize and recover isotopically pure copper.

UCx target preparations and characterizations

The Target-Ion Source unit is the core of an ISOL-RIB facility. Many international ISOL facilities have chosen different layouts of this unit. Many research groups are involved in research and development of targets capable of dissipating high power and, at the same time, be able to have a fast isotope release. This is mandatory in order to produce beams of short half-life isotopes. The research of new materials with advanced microstructural features is crucial in this field. The design of a proper target is indeed strictly related to the obtainment of porous refractory materials, which are capable to work under extreme conditions (temperatures up to 2000 °C in high vacuum) with a high release efficiency. For SPES, the second generation Italian ISOL-RIB Facility, the target will be made of uranium carbide (UCx) in which, by fission induced by a proton beam of 40 MeV of energy (8 kW of power), isotopes in the 60-160 amu mass region are produced. The current technological developments are also crucial in th...

The ISOLPHARM Project for the Production of High Specific Activity Radionuclides for Medical Applications

ISOLPHARM is a branch of the INFN-LNL SPES project, aimed at the production of radioisotopes for medical applications according to the ISOL technique. Such an innovative method will allow to produce carrier-free radionuclides, useful to obtain radiopharmaceuticals with very high specific activities. In this context a primary proton beam, extracted from a cyclotron will directly impinge a target, where the produced isotopes are extracted and accelerated, and finally, after mass separation, only the desired nuclei are deposed on a secondary target. This work is focused in the design and study of the aforementioned production targets for a selected set of isotopes, in particular for Cu, Sr, Y, I and I. Cu will be produced impinging Ni targets, otherwise the SPES UCx target is planned to be used. Different target configurations are being studied by means of the Monte Carlo based code FLUKA for the isotope production calculation and the Finite Element Method based software ANSYS ® for the temperature level evaluation. An appropriate secondary target substrate for implanting the produced isotopes is under study.

The SPES RIB Production Complex

SPES [1] is a second-generation ISOL RIB facility [2] of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN laboratory, Legnaro, Italy) actually in construction phase. The main goal is to provide intense neutron-rich Radioactive Ion Beams directly impinging a UCx target with a proton beam of 40 MeV and current up to 0.2 mA. The production target follows an innovative approach which consists in a target configuration able to keep high the number of fissions, up to 1013 per second, low power deposition and fast release of the produced isotopes. The exotic isotopes generated in the target are then ionized, mass separated and re-accelerated by the ALPI [3] superconducting LINAC at energies of 10 AMeV and higher, for masses in the region of A=130 amu, with an expected rate on the secondary target up to 10^9 particles per second In this work, we will present the recent results on the R&D activities regarding the SPES RIB production complex (see Fig.1).