Astatine-211 production at the Rossendorf cyclotron

The production of Astatine-211 with the 120 cm Rossendorf cyclotron U-120 has been going on for two decades. Natural Bismuth evaporated on an Aluminium backing, a specially constructed water cooled target-block, is irradiated by 28 MeV Alpha-particles: 209Bi(Alpha, 2n)211At. For safety reasons the beam current is limited to 10 µA. The irradiated target is transported to the user who extracts the Astatine by himself. He also prepares the target with Bismuth for the next irradiation.