Calculation of excitation functions for the production of Cu and Co medical isotopes

Abstract

Copper and cobalt radioisotopes have been used for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in the field of nuclear medicine. There is considerable interest in Cu-60,Cu-61,Cu-64,Cu-67 and Co-55,Co-57 radioisotopes for some applications like PET SPECT imaging and targeted radiotherapy of tumors. In present study, the production of Cu-60,Cu-61,Cu-64,Cu-67 and Co-55,Co-57 via Zn-64(p, a)Cu-61, Zn-67(p,a)Cu-64, Zn-70(p,a)Cu-67, Ni-58(p,a)Co-55, Ni-60(p,a)Co-57, Zn-64(p,na)Cu-60 and Zn-68(p,na)Cu-64 reactions have been investigated in the range of 5-40 MeV proton incident energy. The new version of the code ALICE-2011 is used to determine the excitation functions of these nuclear reactions. The calculated excitation functions were compared with experimental results and semi-empirical cross section values of a previously developed model.