Study of the Medical Isotope 177Lu Production in Photonuclear Reactions on 178Hf-Enriched Targets

Abstract

This paper presents the results of studying the yield averaged over the bremsstrahlung flux of the promising medical radioisotope ¹⁷⁷Lu in the (γ, p) reaction from hafnium targets enriched in ¹⁷⁸Hf (92%) after irradiation with electron bremsstrahlung at a cutoff energy of 55 MeV. An assessment is made of the conditions under which the ¹⁷⁷Lu can be produced in quantities necessary for nuclear medicine. The amount of ^177mLu and other accompanying isotopes of lutetium that form simultaneously with ¹⁷⁷Lu in the proposed production method is estimated.