Development of Targets for the Ric-80 Project

The rapidly growing studies in nuclear physics, developments of experimental methods and implementation of very sensitive and effective detectors have provided a very good possibility for development of a completely new direction in medical diagnostics and therapy of diseases, which is presently known as nuclear medicine. The exceptional ability of nuclear medicine methods is based on the possibility to detect and treat a large set of diseases at a very early stage, saving human lives and reducing expenses for treatment. The technology of nuclear medicine used for diagnostics and therapy is based on employing radioactive isotopes with selected properties. The common methods in nuclear diagnostics use the technology of marking medications by specific radionuclides. By measuring the distribution of radioisotopes in the human body, it is possible to observe the functions of the investigated organs or their parts. Similar methods are used for treatment of malignant tumors. In this case, the compounds containing radioactive isotopes are absorbed by malignant formations, which leads to their local irradiation and subsequent destruction. The main advantage of nuclear radiomedicine methods is that the diagnostics and treatment can be carried out at very early stages of the disease. This work is the first part of the program of the target development for the new project of RIC-80 (Radioactive Isotopes at the cyclotron C-80) [1], which is presently being carried out at PNPI. The main task of this work is the development of methods of production and separation of the isotope-generator Sr, which is used for PET diagnostics of heart diseases, and also of some other isotopes used for diagnostics and therapy. The methods are worked out using a 1 GeV proton beam of the synchrocyclotron with the aim to use the developed target prototypes at the new radioisotope facility RIC-80 with the proton energy of 80 MeV and the beam intensity of up to 200 μA.