Activation cross sections of deuteron-induced nuclear reactions on hafnium

Abstract

Experimental excitation functions for deuteron-induced reactions up to 20 MeV on high purity natural hafnium were measured with the activation method using a stacked foil irradiation technique. Metallic hafnium foils with thickness of 10 μm were stacked together with 50 μm thick aluminium and 12 μm thick titanium foils. The aluminium foils served as energy absorber while the titanium foils were used to monitor the energy and intensity of the bombarding deuteron beam. From a detailed remeasurement of the complete excitation function of the natTi(d,x) 48V monitor reaction it was possible to adopt the proper incident energy and beam intensity by comparing the results with the recommended values. High resolution off-line gamma-ray spectrometry was applied to assess the activity of each foil. From the measured activity independent and/or cumulative elemental or isotopic cross section data for production of Ta, Hf and Lu radioisotopes by (d,x) reactions were determined. No experimental cross section data have been published earlier for these reactions in the investigated energy region. The work focuses on the production of 177gLu that one of the promising radionuclides for small tumor therapy due to appropriate average energy of the emitted β-particles and the main gamma-rays that are suitable for detection by gamma-camera. The presented experimental data and results predicted by the TALYS theoretical code are compared. Thick target yields for production of the investigated radionuclides were calculated from a fit to our experimental excitation curves.