Measurement of the 43 Sc production cross-section with a deuteron beam

Sc/ Sc is one of the most promising theranostic pairs in nuclear medicine. The co-emission of 1157 keV γ-rays with 99.9% branching ratio by Sc and the presence of its metastable state Sc push to favour the adoption of Sc for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) diagnostic procedures to lighten the dose to the patient and to the personnel. The β emitter Sc can be produced at a medical cyclotron by proton bombardment of an enriched Ca or Ti oxide target. Sc can be also produced by deuteron bombardment of an enriched Ca oxide target. Only a few medical cyclotrons currently in operation offer deuteron beams. Some can be adapted to operate both a proton or a deuteron source. To compare these three production routes, an accurate knowledge of the cross-sections is essential. In this paper, we report on the cross-section measurement of the reaction Ca(d,n) Sc performed at the 6 MV HVEC EN-Tandem of the Ion Beam Physics group at ETH in Zürich. A study of the production yield by using commercially available enriched target materials is also presented.