Medical isotope collection from ISAC targets

Abstract

The ISAC facility (Isotope Separation and Acceleration) at TRIUMF has recently started to provide isotopes for pre-clinical nuclear medicine studies. By irradiating ISOL (Isotope Separation OnLine) targets with a 480 MeV proton beam from the TRIUMF H- cyclotron, the facility can deliver a large variety of radioactive isotope beams (RIB) for research in the fields of nuclear astrophysics, nuclear structure and material science with half-lives down to a few milliseconds via an electrostatic beamline network. For the collection of medical isotopes, typically with half-lives in the range of hours or days, we have developed a compact apparatus for the implantation of mass-separated RIB on a target disc at energies between 20-55 keV. In this paper, we also discuss two different retrieval methods of the implanted activity from the implantation target: by chemical etching of the target surface and by recoil collection of implanted alpha emitters.