Amount Awarded: $25,000
This proposal aims to build a persistent competency in measuring the nuclear data needed to enable advancements in radiopharmaceutical isotope production. Graduate students and researchers from UC Berkeley (UCB), the University of Oslo (UiO) and other Norwegian Universities that are part of the Norwegian Nuclear Research Centre (NNRC) will work together and exchange ideas during experimental campaigns, collaborative research visits and a topical school.
Accurate nuclear data are critical to optimizing radioisotope production pathways for medical and industrial applications. At intermediate-to-high proton energies (35–70 MeV), the nuclear reaction cross section data necessary to evaluate production yields remain sparse, limiting the ability to predict the contaminant-free production of desirable radionuclides. To address this gap, we propose a collaborative measurement campaign between the UC Berkeley (UCB) and the University of Oslo (UiO) at the accelerator facility of the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (LNL) to acquire high-quality type of nuclear data needed for this purpose, namely (p,x) reaction cross section. The measurements will be performed using a 70 MeV cyclotron at the LNL, which is making this beamtime available to the Norway-Berkeley team free of charge. The campaigns will feature two complementary measurement strategies that together will provide broad and comprehensive datasets, improving the tuning of reaction model parameters. High-priority target isotopes have been identified based on nuclear structure characteristics and application relevance. Data products will directly support radionuclide production efforts at UCB and UiO and the resulting improvements to nuclear reaction models will enhance future predictive capabilities across the field. The collaboration will leverage the established Berkeley codebase and analysis tools, and foster international training of graduate students from UCB, UiO and other Norwegian universities. These interactions will be facilitated through collaborative measurements, research visits and a dedicated school with a focus on radiopharmaceutical isotope production.