Hokkaido University Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering

JP

Medical Applied Basic Physics

Professor
Masayuki Aikawa
Hokkaido University Researcher Database

Professor, Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering
Professor, Faculty of Science
Doctor of Philosophy in the field of Physics at the Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, on March 25, 2002

Research field:Physics
Education field:Physics
Research theme:Cross section measurements of medical radioisotope production

Research

We measure cross sections of nuclear reactions to produce radioisotopes for medicine, such as therapy and diagnosis. This research is conducted in international collaboration with researchers at RIKEN (Japan), ATOMKI (Hungary) and several other institutes.
Radioisotopes (RI), which are nuclei decaying with time, are used in the medical field. Three kinds of particles, alpha-, beta- and gamma-rays, are emitted with the decay of RI and available for medicine. To produce such medical RI, nuclear reactions are required. Probabilities of nuclear reactions (cross sections) are important and fundamental information for the production. But the data of the cross sections are insufficient yet. There are still lack of data and data with large uncertainties. Accurate and reliable data are required for practical use in the medical field. We perform experiments to measure more accurate and reliable cross sections.
Experiments are mainly performed at RIKEN. Charged-particles, such as proton, deuteron and alpha, are accelerated and delivered to targets consisting of pure elements. RI can be created from nuclear reactions between the charged-particles and the targets. The RI can be identified from measurements of gamma-rays with a specific energy. We can finally obtain cross sections which are proportional to net counts of the gamma-rays.
We contribute to the medical field by conducting experimental research of nuclear reactions into medical RI productions.


Key Publications

Scientific paper


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