First positron experiments at NEPOMUC

The in-pile positron source NEutron induced POsitron source MUniCh (NEPOMUC) of the new Munich research reactor FRM-II is now operated at the nominal reactor power of 20 MW. Recently, intensity and positron beam profile measurements were performed at 30 eV and 1 keV, respectively. For this purpose, NaI-scintillators detect the 511 keV γ-radiation of positrons that annihilate at a removable target in the beam line. The beam profile is determined with a micro-channel plate detector and a CCD-camera. In the present arrangement of NEPOMUC's instrumentation the positron beam is connected to a coincident Doppler broadening (CDB) facility and to a positron induced Auger electron spectroscopy (PAES) analysis chamber. First experiments were carried out in order to show the performance of these new spectrometers. An overview of the positron beam facility is given and first experimental results of PAES are presented.     

二氟甲基自由基反应及其在18F标记中的应用

随着正电子发射断层扫描(PET)技术的进步, 高效¹⁸F标记反应显现出重大的研究价值. 同时, 在有机氟化学的快速发展下, 研究人员已开发出一系列产生二氟甲基自由基(·CHF₂)的一碳合成子, 得以被引入到¹⁸F标记反应中. 本文从化学原理出发, 总结了近年来·CHF₂合成子、 碳氢键活化反应及¹⁸F标记的研究, 并展望了未来的研究趋势.     

Effect of thermal annealing on the structure and magnetism of Fe-doped ZnO nanocrystals synthesized by solid state reaction

High purity Fe₂O₃/ZnO nanocomposites were annealed in air at different temperatures between 100 and 1200 °C to get Fe-doped ZnO nanocrystals. The structure and grain size of the Fe₂O₃/ZnO nanocomposites were investigated by X-ray diffraction 2θ scans. Annealing induces an increase of the grain size from 25 to 195 nm and appearance of franklinite phase of ZnFe₂O₄. Positron annihilation measurements reveal large number of vacancy defects in the interface region of the Fe₂O₃/ZnO nanocomposites, and they are gradually recovered with increasing annealing temperature. After annealing at temperatures higher than 1000 °C, the number of vacancies decreases to the lower detection limit of positrons. Room temperature ferromagnetism can be observed in Fe-doped ZnO nanocrystals using physical properties measurement system. The ferromagnetism remains after annealing up to 1000 °C, suggesting that it is not related with the interfacial defects.     

A novel one-pot palladium-mediated synthesis of N-[(2-hydroxyphenyl)methyl]-N-(4-phenoxy-3-pyridinyl) acetamide, the precursor to [C]PBR28, a PET biomarker for the peripheral benzodiazepine receptor

Due to an urgent need to image the peripheral benzodiazepine receptor (PBR) in living human subjects using positron emission tomography imaging, we had cause to prepare N-[(2-hydroxyphenyl)methyl]-N-(4-phenoxy-3-pyridinyl) acetamide (desmethyl-PBR28 (1)), the precursor to [¹¹C]PBR28. Herein, we report a new synthesis of the precursor in which palladium-mediated reduction of the nitro pyridine to the corresponding amino pyridine, and subsequent reductive amination, can be achieved with decaborane in a convenient one-pot procedure. This procedure is operationally simpler than the current alternatives and provides high quality precursor suitable for use in clinical applications.     

Fully automated synthesis of N-labeled nitrosothiols

In the present Letter, a fast, automated, and reproducible method for the synthesis of S-[¹³N]nitrosothiols is reported. The labeling strategy is based on trapping in an anion exchange resin. The reaction with thiols in acidic media led to the formation of the desired nitrosothiols in short reaction times (60 s) with excellent radiochemical conversions (from 48.7% to 74.5%). Final radiotracers were purified by HPLC. Good radiochemical yields (from 33.8% to 60.6%, decay corrected) and radiochemical purities (>99%) were obtained in all cases. Stability of the labeled compounds was checked.     

Tetrabutylammonium fluoride-promoted α-[C]methylation of α-arylesters: a simple and robust method for the preparation of C-labeled ibuprofen

Tetrabutylammonium fluoride-promoted α-[¹¹C]methylation of α-arlylesters was developed. The method was amenable to the remote-controlled synthesis of ¹¹C-labeled ibuprofen.     

A new smoothing-regularization approach for a maximum-likelihood estimation problem

We consider the problem min _i=1 ^m (aⁱ,x–b_iloga ⁱ, z) subject tox 0 which occurs as a maximum-likelihood estimation problem in several areas, and particularly in positron emission tomography. After noticing that this problem is equivalent to mind(b, Ax) subject tox 0, whered is the Kullback-Leibler information divergence andA, b are the matrix and vector with rows and entriesa ⁱ,b _i, respectively, we suggest a regularized problem mind(b, Ax) + d(v, Sx), where is the regularization parameter,S is a smoothing matrix, andv is a fixed vector. We present a computationally attractive algorithm for the regularized problem, establish its convergence, and show that the regularized solutions, as goes to 0, converge to the solution of the original problem which minimizes a convex function related tod(v, Sx). We give convergence-rate results both for the regularized solutions and for their functional values.The research of A. N. Iusem was partially supported by CNPq Grant No. 301280/86-MA.     

聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯中正电子湮没寿命参数温度效应的研究

对聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯的非晶、低温热处理(54℃)、高温热处理(180℃)以及双轴拉伸等四种不同试样,测量了室温到180℃范围内不同温度在的正电子湮没寿命谱.根据最小二乘曲线拟合解谱结果,可知最长寿命成份的湮没参数τ和I的温度曲线分别灵敏地反映了聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯的玻璃转变过程和结晶过程.据此讨论了正电子湮没寿命参数与PET转变的关联以及PET玻璃转变的有关性质.     

Recent developments on the fluorinase from Streptomyces cattleya

This is a summary of a lecture presented at the 100th Anniversary, Moissan Symposium in Paris on Friday, 10 November 2006. The lecture highlighted recent developments on the enzyme structure, mechanism and biotransformation prospects of the fluorinase enzyme identified in 2002 from the bacterium Streptomyces cattleya. Over-expression of the enzyme has allowed it to be used as a catalyst for ¹⁸F-incorporation during the synthesis of potential ligands for positron emission tomography (PET) applications.     

Positron lifetime and microstructural characterisation of a-Si:H deposited by low temperature HW-CVD on paper substrates

In thin film electronic applications, the limiting factor, in terms of cost and usability, is generally the substrate material. As a consequence, different materials are being investigated as potential lightweight, inexpensive and flexible substrates. In this respect, we have been the first research collaboration to produce silicon-based electronics on paper substrates. Here we present structural characterisation of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layers deposited on 80 g m⁻² wood-free paper, with and without an intermediate metallic interlayer, using low temperature hot wire chemical vapour deposition (HW-CVD). Both pulsed positron beam profiling and X-ray diffraction studies indicate that the growth rate on the uncoated substrate is slightly higher than with prior metallization. There is no evidence of a crystalline phase or voids in the a-Si:H layers. The internal defect structure is similar, with a dominant dangling bond complex of similar size, which has a slightly longer lifetime than in layers grown at higher temperatures on conventional substrates.