Speaker
Summary
Isotope Separation On-Line (ISOL) is one of the most cutting-edge techniques for the production of exotic nuclides. The Italian ISOL facility SPES, located at INFN-LNL, has recently become operational after its first Radioactive Ion Beam (RIB) was produced in 2024. In this context, the SPES_MED experiment, financed by INFN, has the aim of testing for the first time the production of isotopes of biomedical interest at SPES.
This study presents a workflow for the theoretical modeling of the ISOL production at SPES. The main steps taken into account are: the generation of isotopes in the target irradiated by protons, the diffusion and effusion processes leading to the release of the species from the target and the ionization of the atoms for subsequent acceleration and formation of the RIB. Such steps can be analyzed combining Monte Carlo simulations (using particle-transport codes like Geant4 or FLUKA) and theoretical models, in order to optimize the parameters of the system which most affect the production yield of the desired isotope. As a case-study, the theoretical analysis of the production of magnesium-28, a radiotracer with applications in biology and medicine, is reported. This considers the production of magnesium-28 via proton-induced nuclear reactions in a silicon carbide (SiC) target, the diffusion in the target discs, the effusion from the target box and the ionization using resonant lasers.
The analysis revealed that, with the current constructive parameters, the diffusion process critically slows down the whole procedure of magnesium-28 production. To overcome this limit, the present work suggests that certain properties of the target, such as the size of the grains and the resistance to high temperature, may have to be improved.
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