Revisiting Low Energy Deuteron Production of [¹⁸F] Fluoride and Fluorine for PET

Fluorine‐18 is currently the most widely used radioisotope in PET imaging. While much attention has been paid in recent years to production methods from ¹⁸O(p,n)¹⁸F, the current work revisits production techniques using non‐enriched neon targets and the ²⁰Ne(d,α)¹⁸F reaction. While this reaction was originally pursued, and ultimately replaced by the higher yielding ¹⁸O reactions, there is an opportunity using high current low‐energy deuteron accelerators and the inherent simplicity of gas targetry to provide viable alternatives to the costly ¹⁸O water target systems. ¹⁸F production systems have been developed for the gas‐phase ²⁰Ne(d,α)¹⁸F reaction with deuterons from a 3MV NEC 9SDH‐2 electrostatic tandem accelerator. High power target systems allowing for irradiation in excess of 100uA provided [¹⁸F]F₂ yields to 86% of the theoretical maximum, and [¹⁸F]F⁻ yields with a wash‐off system of 80% of the maximum.