A New Family of High-Current Cyclotrons for Isotope Production

Abstract

We have developed a new family of compact cyclotrons designed to accelerate record-high currents of ions with charge-to-mass of 1/2. We have detailed engineering designs for a 5 mA H2+ cyclotron (delivering 10 mA of protons) and are extending this concept to 5 mA of deuterons (D+). The innovations enabling the high currents are: 1) bunching with an RFQ that enables efficient capture and 2) space-charge-mitigated stable bunch formation established in the first few turns. These developments can be applied to cyclotron from 5 to around 60 MeV/amu. A 20 MeV/amu deuteron cyclotron would be effective for 225Ac production via (n,2n) with fast neutrons generated by deuteron breakup in beryllium.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, paper to be submitted to the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, as part of the Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Isotopes, held in Saskatoon, Canada, July 202