Eur. Phys. J. A (2021) 57: 324
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-021-00632-3

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Excitation functions for the formation of ${}^{90}$Nb, ${}^{91\mathrm{m}}$Nb and ${}^{92\mathrm{m}}$Nb in the ${}^{\mathrm{nat}}$Zr(p,x) reactions

¹ Institute of Theoretical and Applied Research, Duy Tan University, 100000, Hanoi, Vietnam
² Faculty of Natural Sciences, Duy Tan University, 550000, Da Nang, Vietnam
³ Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 10 Dao Tan, Hanoi, Viet Nam
⁴ Department of Physics, Kyungpook National University, 41566, Daegu, Republic of Korea

^e gnkim@knu.ac.kr

Received: 3 August 2021
Accepted: 14 November 2021
Published online: 6 December 2021

Abstract

The excitation function of the ${}^{\mathit{nat}}$Zr(p,x)${}^{90}$Nb, ${}^{\mathit{nat}}$Zr(p,x)${}^{91m}$Nb and ${}^{\mathit{nat}}$Zr(p,x)${}^{92m}$Nb reactions were measured within the incident proton energies range of 10.58 MeV to 43.61 MeV, based on the stacked-foil activation technique. The degradation of proton energy along the sample stack was calculated using the code SRIM-2013, and the proton flux was determined by using the ${}^{\mathit{nat}}$Cu(p,x)${}^{62,65}$Zn monitor reactions. The induced $\gamma$-ray activity needed to determine the reaction cross-section was measured by using an HPGe detector. The measured cross sections are compared with the literature data and with the theoretical predictions based on TALYS-1.95 code. For the theoretical calculations, the effect of different level density models and $\gamma$-ray strength functions was taken into account. Besides the measured excitation functions, the integral yields of ${}^{90}$Nb, ${}^{91m}$Nb and ${}^{92m}$Nb formation were also calculated.