Speaker
Description
Radioisotopes are indispensable agents in medical diagnosis and treatment, among which copper-62, 64 (Cu-62, 64) and gallium-68 (Ga-68) are medical isotopes widely used in positron emission tomography imaging. Nuclear isomer Mo-93m has a (21/2)$^+$ isomer at 2,425 keV with a half-life of 6.85 h and a (17/2)$^+$ intermediate state that lies 4.85 keV higher at 2,430 keV with a half-life of 3.5 ns. Such isomeric property is attractive to exploiting the depletion of nuclear isomers via nuclear excitation by electron capture. Experimental study of these radioisotopes and nuclear isomer have gained a lot attention. Recently, experiments that generate these radioisotopes and isomer via laser-induced nuclear reactions were performed on the XingGuangIII laser facility of the Laser Fusion Research Center in Mianyang. In this presentation, we introduce experimental study on laser production of Cu-62, 64, Ga-68, and Mo-93m using the XingGuangIII laser facility. Their respectively production yields were obtained to be of the order of 10$^6$ per laser shot. The prospect of producing the medical isotopes Cu-62,64 and Ga-68 are further evaluated using a table-top femtosecond laser system of high repetition. In addition, the effect of nuclear reaction flow on the population of $^{93m}$Mo is studied. The $^{93m}$Mo involved photodisintegration reactions leading to the production of $%^{92}$Mo, which is one of the most debated p-nuclei, is further discussed. It is found that the $^{93}$Nb(p, n)$^{93m}$Mo reaction is an important production path for $^{93m}$Mo seed nucleus, and the influence of $^{93m}$Mo-$^{92}$Mo reaction flow cannot be ignored.
This research is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFA1603300) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U2230133)
