Feasibility study of laser-driven neutron sources for pharmaceutical applications. (13th January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mori, Takato; Yogo, Akifumi; Arikawa, Yasunobu; Hayakawa, Takehito; Mirfayzi, Seyed R.; Lan, Zechen; Wei, Tianyun; Abe, Yuki; Nakai, Mitsuo; Mima, Kunioki; Nishimura, Hiroaki; Fujioka, Shinsuke; Kodama, Ryosuke
• Is Part Of: High power laser science and engineering. Volume 11(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-01-13
• Subjects: laser ion acceleration -- laser-driven neutron source -- medical radioisotope; High power lasers -- Periodicals; 621.366
• DOI: 10.1017/hpl.2023.4
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2095-4719

Abstract

Abstract: We predict the production yield of a medical radioisotope ${}^{67}$ Cu using ${}^{67}$ Zn(n, p) ${}^{67}$ Cu and ${}^{68}$ Zn(n, pn) ${}^{67}$ Cu reactions with fast neutrons provided from laser-driven neutron sources. The neutrons were generated by the p+ ${}^9\mathrm{Be}$ and d+ ${}^9$ Be reactions with high-energy ions accelerated by laser–plasma interaction. We evaluated the yield to be (3.3 $\pm$ 0.5) $\times$ 10 ${}^5$ atoms for ${}^{67}$ Cu, corresponding to a radioactivity of 1.0 $\pm$ 0.2 Bq, for a Zn foil sample with a single laser shot. Using a simulation with this result, we estimated ${}^{67}$ Cu production with a high-frequency laser. The result suggests that it is possible to generate ${}^{67}$ Cu with a radioactivity of 270 MBq using a future laser system with a frequency of 10 Hz and 10, 000-s radiation in a hospital.