Assessment of 177Lu Production through 176Yb Target Bombardment using Deuteron Particles and Back-Shifted Fermi Gas Model

The radioisotope lutetium-177 (¹⁷⁷Lu) has been proposed for the use of radioimmunotherapy in nuclear medicine. Currently, ¹⁷⁷Lu is primarily generated through neutron activation in nuclear reactors, whereas cyclotron-based production can also be explored. In this study, cyclotron located in Karaj with a deuteron energy of 15 MeV was considered to simulate the production of ¹⁷⁷Lu using Ytterbium-176 target. Here, two types of interaction cross-sections (d,p) and (d,x) were analyzed via Back-Shifted Fermi Gas Model (BSFM) by Talys code. In addition, the production yield of the two types of interactions mentioned at different energies was calculated. The Fermi gas model is an idealized system of non-interacting particles. In reality, however, effects such as Pauli blocking, hole heating, and two-body losses in molecular Fermi gases hinder cooling processes and reduce efficiency. The use of more complex nuclear level density prescriptions, which account for interactions, can improve agreement between calculations and reported data.