Revisiting Low Energy Deuteron Production of [18F] Fluoride and Fluorine for PET

Fluorine‐18 is currently the most widely used radioisotope in PET imaging. While much attention has been paid in recent years to production methods from 18O(p,n)18F, the current work revisits production techniques using non‐enriched neon targets and the 20Ne(d,α)18F reaction. While this reaction was originally pursued, and ultimately replaced by the higher yielding 18O reactions, there is an opportunity using high current low‐energy deuteron accelerators and the inherent simplicity of gas targetry to provide viable alternatives to the costly 18O water target systems. 18F production systems have been developed for the gas‐phase 20Ne(d,α)18F reaction with deuterons from a 3MV NEC 9SDH‐2 electrostatic tandem accelerator. High power target systems allowing for irradiation in excess of 100uA provided [18F]F2 yields to 86% of the theoretical maximum, and [18F]F− yields with a wash‐off system of 80% of the maximum