In a long career at Brookhaven National Laboratory I was involved in the development of more than two dozen radioisotopes. Some were produced at the High Flux Beam Reactor with both thermal and fast neutrons but most were produced by proton irradiation at our major facility, the Brookhaven Linac Isotope Producer (BLIP). This accelerator now features energy incrementally variable from 66 to 200 MeV and beam intensity of 170μA. The target assembly allows up to eight targets to be simultaneously irradiated enabling both flexibility and high production levels. Most of the radioisotopes developed were for medical application, either basic research, clinical diagnosis or even cancer therapy. All the projects involved chemistry to separate the desired isotope from a large mix of others, nuclear physics to determine the optimum bombardment energy needed to maximize production and minimize unwanted impurities, and mechanical engineering challenges related to target thermal performance. Some of the projects were more interesting, significant, successful or just plain fun. A selection of these highlights, both older and recent, will be reviewed.

Thirty six years of radioisotope research: Some of the fun stuff

256th National Meeting (2018)

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