Resonant laser ionization and mass separation of 225Ac

Abstract $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac is a radio-isotope that can be linked to biological vector molecules to treat certain distributed cancers using targeted alpha therapy. However, developing $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac-labelled radiopharmaceuticals remains a challenge due to the supply shortage of pure $$^{225}$$ 225...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jake D. Johnson, Michael Heines, Frank Bruchertseifer, Eric Chevallay, Thomas E. Cocolios, Kristof Dockx, Charlotte Duchemin, Stephan Heinitz, Reinhard Heinke, Sophie Hurier, Laura Lambert, Benji Leenders, Hanna Skliarova, Thierry Stora, Wiktoria Wojtaczka
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2023-01-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28299-4
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Summary:Abstract $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac is a radio-isotope that can be linked to biological vector molecules to treat certain distributed cancers using targeted alpha therapy. However, developing $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac-labelled radiopharmaceuticals remains a challenge due to the supply shortage of pure $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac itself. Several techniques to obtain pure $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac are being investigated, amongst which is the high-energy proton spallation of thorium or uranium combined with resonant laser ionization and mass separation. As a proof-of-principle, we perform off-line resonant ionization mass spectrometry on two samples of $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac, each with a known activity, in different chemical environments. We report overall operational collection efficiencies of 10.1(2)% and 9.9(8)% for the cases in which the $$^{225}$$ 225 Ac was deposited on a rhenium surface and a ThO $$_{2}$$ 2 mimic target matrix respectively. The bottleneck of the technique was the laser ionization efficiency, which was deduced to be 15.1(6)%.
ISSN:2045-2322