Pre-equilibrium effects on proton, deuteron, and alpha induced reactions for the production of 72As as a PET imaging radioisotope

In this study, the production methods and the applications of As-72 are reviewed with special attention to the feasibility of the cyclotron production of As-72. TALYS-1.4 and ALICE/ASH codes were employed to illustrate the formation of the As-72 via Ge-nat(p, xn)As-72, Ge-72,Ge-73,Ge-74(p, xn)As-72, Ge-72(d, 2n)As-72, and Ga-69(alpha, n)As-72 reactions. Hybrid model and geometry dependent hybrid model were used in ALICE/ASH code to calculate the pre-equilibrium neutron-production cross sections. The excitation functions of the reactions were taken from the TENDL-2011 database and compared with the reported experimental measurement. The equilibrium and pre-equilibrium effects on the reactions were also discussed. An optimum energy range and the level of impurities for each reaction were determined. The As-72 production yield was evaluated with concentration on the excitation function calculations and the stopping powers of the projectiles in the targets.