Production of an Accelerated Oxygen-14 Beam

BEARS is an ongoing project to provide a light-ion radioactive-beam capability at the 88-Inch Cyclotron at LBNL. Light radioactive isotopes are produced at a 10 MeV proton medical cyclotron, transported 350 m via a high-speed gas transport capillary, cryogenically separated, and injected into the 88-Inch Cyclotron's ion source. The first radioactive beam successfully accelerated was Carbon-11 and beams of intensity more than 108 ions/sec have been utilized for experiments. Development of Oxygen-14 as the second BEARS beam presented considerable technical challenges, both due to its short half-life of 71 seconds and the radiation chemistry of oxygen in the target. The usual techniques developed for medical uses of Oxygen-15 involve the addition of significant amounts of carrier oxygen, something that would overload the ion source. As a solution, Oxygen-14 is produced as water in a carrier-free form, and is chemically converted in two steps to carbon dioxide, a form readily usable by the BEARS. This system has been built and is operational, and initial tests of accelerating an Oxygen-14 beam have been performed