Thick solid targets for the production and online release of radioisotopes: The importance of the material characteristics - A review

The target material microstructure development for ISOL targets has received special attention by the scientific community. In the past 10 years, the number of peer-reviewed articles in the field has been growing at steady rate. The development of more efficient materials which deliver high radioactive ion beam yields that are also constant over time, is now a priority for the ISOL facilities around the world. Most of the microstructure engineering work focused more on nanocomposite carbide-carbon targets (e.g. UCx ) but also in some oxide developments and others. An introduction is given to solid thick target microstructure engineering and respective limitations. This is followed by a complete review of the target material developments, in ISOL facilities around the world, focused on developments toward micro or nano scale dimensions.