High Efficiency Cyclotron Trap Assisted Moderator (HECTAM)
We published further advancements in the development of a high efficient positron moderator, the basis for the widespread use of positron beams for material characterization, which was already awarded as one of the top 5 Spark Award finalists.
In our publication we report on the realisation of the HECTAM used for the conversion of positrons with a broad keV–few MeV energy spectrum to a mono-energetic eV beam with an efficiency of 1.8(2)% defined as the ratio of the slow positrons divided by the β+ activity of the radioactive source. This is an improvement of almost two orders of magnitude compared to the state of the art of tungsten moderators. Furthermore we advanced in the methodology for the production of positron emitters with a new method to produce 48V high-activity thin foil sources based on a solid target station at the medical cyclotron of the Bern University Hospital (Inselspital). external pageDOI