Irradiation methods for production of high specific activity radionuclides in no carrier added form

High specific activity radionuclides (HSARN) are a powerful tool to label a large range of chemistry species at very low concentation levels. To obtain these radiotracers in a very high specific activity form, it is necessary to optimize the prodaction methods, to separate and purify them from the irradiated target without the addition of inactive carrier, to carry out a series of analytical and radioanalytical tests to determine their "true" specific activity and to verify a series of purity parameters. A review of irradiation methods and nuclear parameters adopted in the author's labs. for the preparation of some tens of radiotracers is presented with 40 refs.