Characterising & Standardising ‘Interesting’ Radiosotopes at the UK National Physical Laboratory

Orateur : Patrick H. REGAN (Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK and Acoustics and Ionizing Radiation Division, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, TW11 0LW, UK)

The radioactivity group based at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is responsible for traceability of radiological standards within the UK. This requires the use of a range of novel and high-precision radiation detection systems which can be utilised to provide definitive standards of the stoichiometry, decay rate and physical nature of emissions from different samples of radioactive materials. The link in the (ideally) unbroken calibration chain for radiopharmaceuticals and other radioactive sources / reference materials is based at the NPL, which is responsible for traceability to Becquerel (Bq) within the UK. This presentation will outline some of the experimental techniques which are used to provide primary and secondary standards for radioactivity calibrations based on gamma-ray and/or charged particle spectrometry. An example of the recent standardisation of the naturally occurring radionuclide 223Ra [1-3] will be presented. This is of particular current focus as this radionuclide is both a member of the actinium (4n+1) chain headed by 235U and also the main therapeutic component in the radiopharmaceutical XOFIGO© [4]. The presentation will also outline some of the other methods for the production and radiochemical separation of 236Np as a long-lived tracer for 237Np measurements in nuclear spent fuel / waste management [5] and finally outline the development of a novel, digitally-based system for primary standardisation using coincident gamma-ray spectroscopy with LaBr3(Ce) detectors [6], thereby utilising spin-out knowledge from the recent EXILL-FA TIMA experimental campaign performed at ILL [7].

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