Optimizing the radioisotope production of the novel AMIT superconducting weak focusing cyclotron

Nuclear imaging techniques are becoming one of the most widely used medical diagnostics tools for certain illness such as cancer and Alzheimer disease. The increase in these medical procedures, particularly positron emission tomography, is leading to a saturation of the actual radioisotope productio...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Calvo Portela, Pedro
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/11586
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/11586
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:539.183.2(043.2)
AMIT cyclotron
Radioisotope production
Ciclotrón AMIT
Producción de radioisótopos
Física nuclear
2207 Física Atómica y Nuclear
Descripción
Sumario:Nuclear imaging techniques are becoming one of the most widely used medical diagnostics tools for certain illness such as cancer and Alzheimer disease. The increase in these medical procedures, particularly positron emission tomography, is leading to a saturation of the actual radioisotope production system. Therefore, particle accelerators, specially the cyclotron, emerged as an alternative to the traditional supply system based on centralized production in nuclear reactors. Its characteristics from the physical and technological point of view allow a controlled and localized production, especially relevant in the case of short-lived radionuclides, through a well-known technology developed for decades without the use of a large and expensive facilities. With that in mind, the AMIT project (Advanced Molecular Imaging Technologies) aims to extend the use of these medical procedures with the development of a new compact cyclotron focused on the on-site short-life radioisotopes production, specifically 11C and 18F, in hospitals and research centers. In order to achieve this main objective, the AMIT cyclotron is based on a classical weak focus configuration with high magnetic field provided by a superconducting magnet with an autonomous cryogenic system. In addition, with the aim of reducing the total size of the accelerator, the cyclotron employs an internal H- ion source with an electron stripping system that provides a final proton beam that is transported to the production target. This thesis evaluates the challenging combination of all the technical characteristics of the AMIT cyclotron, which results in a balance of the beam dynamics with all the subsystems to achieve an optimal radioisotope production. For this goal, all the physical processes associated with the beam acceleration from the ions production and the injection into the accelerator, to the extraction of the resulting beam and its transport to the target are studied by means of theoretical analysis, computational calculations and experimental measurements...