Deuteron-induced reactions generated by intense lasers for PET isotope production

Abstract

We investigate the feasibility of using laser accelerated protons/deuterons for positron emission tomography (PET) isotope production by means of the nuclear reactions 11 B(p, n) 11 C and 10 B(d, n) 11 C. The second reaction has a positive Q-value and no energy threshold. One can, therefore, make use of the lower energy part of the laser-generated deuterons, which includes the majority of the accelerated deuterons. The 11 C produced from the reaction 10 B(d, n) 11 C is estimated to be 7.4 × 10 9 per laser-shot at the Titan laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Meanwhile a high-repetition table top laser irradiation is estimated to generate 3.5 × 10 7 11 C per shot from the same reaction. In terms of the 11 C activity, it is about 2 × 10 4 Bq per shot. If this laser delivers kHz, the activity is integrated to 1 GBq after 3 minutes. The number is sufficient for the practical application in medical imaging for PET.

Hydrodynamic Scaling Analysis of Nuclear Fusion Driven by Ultra-Intense Laser-Plasma Interactions

“…Which one of the two limits is closer to the real case might be inferred from the scaled Π/ρ cr . The scaled Π/ρ cr in Eq.s (7), (8) and (9) is rewritten in terms of σvd as…”

“…Ultraintense laser pulses can generate high energy protons when irradiating a thin foil target 1,2,3,4 . The proton beams generated by the laser irradiations have various potential applications 5 in science, engineering and medical imaging 6,7 . The laser pulse parameters, i.e., pulse energy, peak intensity and pulse duration, are, however, currently not optimized for practical applications.…”

Design considerations for a pulse line ion accelerator (PLIA)‐based PET isotope generator

“…The simulations performed in this work illustrate the use of a PLIA structure to accelerate intense proton beams with peak accelerating fields in excess of 2 MV/m for a 100 kV input pulse. While these simulations have used only a single PLIA stage, we anticipate three or more PLIA structures, fired in sequence, will be necessary to accelerate protons to energies suitable for isotope production (~7–10 MeV); alternative strategies using lower energy deuterium beams for F‐18, C‐11, and N‐13 production are also possible …”

“…While these simulations have used only a single PLIA stage, we anticipate three or more PLIA structures, fired in sequence, will be necessary to accelerate protons to energies suitable for isotope production (~7-10 MeV); alternative strategies using lower energy deuterium beams for F-18, C-11, and N-13 production are also possible. 18 The staged firing of multiple PLIA sections presents a unique set of challenges. With a multistage PLIA, the delay time, pulse rise time, travelling wave speed, and length of the different PLIA stages are all parameters that need to be optimized in order to maintain synchrony of the particle bunch with the travelling electric field wave, thereby maximizing the accelerating gradient.…”

Spectral Comparison of Neutron-Irradiated Natural and Enriched Ytterbium Targets for Lu-177 Production

“…In nuclear medicine, radioisotope-labeled chemical compounds are employed to image patients' organs to diagnose their diseases [4,5], whereas certain radioisotopes are also used for therapy [6,7]. Radioisotopes can be produced using a nuclear reactor [8] or a cyclotron or other accelerators [9][10], though less-commonlyused laser [11] and plasma focus [12] are also suggested for radioisotope production.…”