Artist’s view of the cyclotron and its target device
LOTUS is an on-demand radioactive tracer production system, supplying the product directly in a syringe for injection into the patient before a PET scan.
COMPOSITION OF THE SYSTEM MARKETED BY PMB
? A compact 12 Mev cyclotron made with a superconducting magnet with active shielding.
? An automated target replacement system for producing radioactive ions: carbon-11 and fluorine-18.
? A microfluidic cassette for synthesizing the tracer containing the radioactive ions.
? In-line quality control.
? Fully automated filling of the syringes with the tracer to be injected into the patient.
SACM’s ROLE
The cyclotron operates in a magnetic field of 1.8 T induced by superconductor coils and surrounded by an 800 kg iron yoke. Cooling is provided by cryogenerators, which cool the coil by solid conduction to a temperature of 4 K (- 269°C). In addition to the design of this dry magnet in collaboration with Sigmaphi, SACM is studying the possibility of replacing the NbTi superconductor with MgB2 to improve its robustness for coping with unplanned power outages.
• Accelerator physics and technology › R&D and Instrumentation for Future Accelerators
