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

摘要

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. By assuming that the deuteron spectra are similar to the proton spectra, the ~(11)C produced from the reaction ~(10)B(d, n)~(11)C is estimated to be 7.4 x 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 x 10~(711)C per shot from the same reaction. In terms of the ~(11)C activity, it is about 2 x 10~4 Bq per shot. If this laser delivers kHz, the activity is integrated to 1 GBq after 3 min. The number is sufficient for the practical application in medical imaeine for PET.