Electron Recirculating Linacs for Isotope Production
Applications of accelerator science to nuclear medicine...
ERLs are increasingly the technology of choice for highly demanding applications. In energy recovery, more than 90% of the beam power is recycled and not deposited in a beam dump. Our first application will be for nuclear medicine, which has humanitarian and commercial benefits. Of the 30 million people who are hospitalized each year in the United States, a third are treated with nuclear medicine. More than 10 million nuclear-medicine procedures are performed on patients and more than 100 million nuclear medicine tests are performed each year in the United States alone. There are nearly one hundred radioisotopes whose beta and/or gamma radiation is used in diagnosis, therapy, or investigations in nuclear medicine. We are interested in the commonly used isotopes as well as developing techniques for isotopes for new applications, both medical and industrial.
We are using our own codes, MuSim for MCNP6 and G4beamline for GEANT4, and others to optimize beam parameters of an ERL-based radioisotope production facility.