The South African Isotope Facility (SAIF) is a radioisotope production facility based around a 70 MeV Cyclotron from IBA. SAIF was commissioned at the end of 2023 and commenced commercial isotope production in 2024. The facility is located in three vaults at iThemba LABS in Cape Town. The vault design, radiation modelling, and an overview of construction are presented. The designs and commissioning of the cyclotron, beam lines, wobbler magnet, dedicated target stations and target transport system are described and discussed, along with their current performance.

Astatine 211 is one of the most effective theragnostics isotopes for targeted alpha therapy of cancer. Connected to a carrier that links to cancer cells when injected in a patient, this powerful alpha emitter can selectively destroy cancerous cells. Accelerator production of 211At requires sending beams of fully stripped helium ions (alpha particles) on a bismuth target at the energy of 7.1 Me/u. To obtain sufficient doses for hospital production of 211At, currents higher than what provided by cyclotrons are required. For this type of particle and intensities, cyclotrons are limited by the large amount of beam loss and activation in the extraction region, while linacs are virtually loss-free and much better suited for At production. The design of an innovative linac for At production is presented, based on an alpha particle source of new design, a compact Radio Frequency Quadrupole, and a Quasi-Alvarez Drift Tube Linac (QA-DTL) going up to the final energy. Thanks to the QA-DTL low injection energy and compact design, the linac is only 10 meters in length. The overall design is presented, together with detailed RF and beam optics simulations.

The MEDICIS facility is a unique facility located at CERN, dedicated to the production of non-conventional radionuclides for research and development in imaging, diagnostics and radiation therapy, and based on offline mass separation. It exploits a classified area for handling of highly radioactive open sources, a dedicated isotope separator beam line, a target irradiation station at the 1.4 GeV Proton Synchroton Booster (PSB) and receives activated targets from external institutes during CERN Long Shut-Downs. After collection, the batch is prepared to be dispatched to a research center. Since its commissioning in December 2017, the facility has provided novel radionuclides such as Ba-128, Tb-155, Sm-153, Tm-165 Ra-224/Pb-212 and Ra-225/Ac-225 with high specific activity, some for the first time, to research institutes part of the collaboration. CERN-MEDICIS has advanced significantly to reach mature processes to translate into clinical application for the most promising radionuclides.

Ionetix Corporation has been conducting research and development on compact superconducting cyclotrons for medical isotope production, with multiple Ion-12SC units installed and operated at customer sites in USA. Since 2021, we have also focused on the production of alpha-emitting medical isotopes for cancer therapy, specifically At-211 and Ac-225. As a first step, Ionetix acquired an existing, partial CS-30 Cyclotron system decommissioned and stored in a warehouse. We refurbished and upgraded the CS-30 cyclotron, replacing components as needed. The installation of the CS-30 was completed in 2022, and it has been operational, accelerating alpha and proton beams since 2023. The refurbished cyclotron features new main and trim coils, a new internal bismuth target and drive, and a new central region to enhance the beam-on-target performance. All power supplies, controls, and instrumentation were replaced with commercially available components. The first production of At-211 at Ionetix was achieved in April 2023, followed by the first production of Ac-225 in June 2024. This paper analyzes and describes the CS-30 cyclotron, and the upgrades and enhancements developed at Ionetix.

The National Atomic Research Institute (NARI) is developing a 70 MeV proton cyclotron, with construction set from 2023 to 2027. The cyclotron is designed to operate at proton energies from 28 to 70 MeV and a maximum current of 1000 micro-amperes. It will serve three main purposes: (1) medical isotope production, (2) proton irradiation testing, and (3) cyclotron-based neutron source development. NARI aims to ensure a stable supply of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine, such as Tl-201, I-123, and Ga-67, while advancing the development of isotopes like Cu-67 and Mo-99. In addition to medical uses, the cyclotron will simulate space radiation environments for aerospace materials testing and radiation measurement standards. The cyclotron will also support neutron-based technologies, benefiting nuclear physics, new materials, and industrial applications. Neutron research will occur in two phases: Phase I (2023–2026) will establish a thermal neutron target station for neutron diffraction studies, and Phase II (2027–2030) will develop a quasi-monoenergetic neutron (QMN) source for soft error rate testing in electronics and a high-resolution neutron imaging station. Expected to be fully operational by 2028, the facility will include seven beamlines, two solid target stations, one gas target station, and specialized laboratories for proton, fast neutron, and thermal neutron research. The NARI 70 MeV cyclotron will support both routine isotope production and advanced scientific research.

The high current density of HTS material allows electromagnet to induce sufficiently strong magnetic field without relying on any iron core. This permits the design of air-cored cyclotron, where the absence of iron core brings the properties of light-weight and high field reproducibility, making it an ideal medical cyclotron to be installed inside hospitals. However, the cyclotron coil system need to induce highly accurate field while satisfying the engineering restriction from the HTS coil. Compact size, small fringe field and minimum fabrication cost are also desirable at the same time. A HTS coil system of air-cored cyclotron is designed with the above restrictions taken into consideration. Multiple beam type accelerations that are required for medical RI production are simulated, in order to verify the usefulness of this design. In this work, the coil system design, the magnetic field and the HTS coil properties are presented. The feasibility of actual fabrication and in-hospital installation is discussed.

We have started research and development of a 4K niobium-tin superconducting RF (SRF) electron accelerator system for radioisotope (RI) production. The niobium-tin superconducting RF electron linac can be operated with the compact conduction cooling system without liquid helium and large-scale equipment. The cavity-cryocooler thermal link needs a careful design as its thermal conductance will control the temperatures of the cavity and the cryocooler. As the first step of our research, S-band Nb3Sn superconducting cavities and its conduction cooling system are developed, and their performance will be demonstrated. Beam acceleration experiments using those niobium-tin superconducting cavities are planned at the test accelerator at Tohoku University. The status of the niobium-tin superconducting cavity development will be reported at this conference.

Recent results of production of the medical radionuclides 67Cu using a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) are presented. This emerging technique utilises powerful, ultrashort laser pulses that are focussed into a gas jet to create a plasma wake that traps and accelerates electrons to very high energies with large accelerating gradients. Accelerated electrons interact with high-Z material to produce high-energy photons by bremsstrahlung, which then produce 67Cu via the 68Zn(γ, p)67Cu photonuclear reaction. 67Cu, with 62 h half-life, is considered ideal radioisotope for treatment of lymphoma and colon cancer.* The production of 67Cu requires medium-energy (~70 MeV) protons that are only available at limited number of facilities. We present the experimental setup, maximising electron pulse intensity by optimising laser beam properties and target composition of gas jet. The gamma beam and the design of 68Zn are optimised using FLUKA simulations. We will also report on the development of detectors for online monitoring of the electron and gamma beams, and produced activities of the radionuclides.

Methods for medical isotope production using electron liner accelerator have been investigated in past studies. The accelerators used for medical isotope production increasingly demand high-power electron beams. In this article we present the physical design of a compact superconducting accelerator capable of providing a high average current electron beam with a current of 10 mA and an energy of 40 MeV for medical isotope production. We focused on performing beam dynamics simulations and optimizing the beam parameters at the exit of the accelerator by Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm. The accelerator employs a Nb3Sn superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavity to achieve high average beam power and utilizes a cryocooler conduction-cooling technique for efficient operation.