Radiochim. Acta 2017; 105(12): 985–992 Md. Shuza Uddin*, Animesh Kumer Chakraborty, Stefan Spellerberg, Ingo Spahn, Md. Asad Shariff, Md. Abdur Rashid and Syed M. Qaim Excitation functions of proton induced nuclear reactions on nat Fe up to 16 MeV, with emphasis on radiochemical determination of low cross sections DOI 10.1515/ract-2017-2818 Received May 4, 2017; accepted May 12, 2017; published online July 4, 2017 Abstract: Excitation functions for the formation of the radionuclides 56 Co, 57 Co, 58m+g Co and 54 Mn via proton induced reactions on natural iron target were measured from their respective thresholds up to 16 MeV using the stacked-foil activation technique and HPGe detector γ-ray spectroscopy. In the threshold energy range, the low cross sections for 54 Mn were measured radiochemi- cally. All the measured values were compared with avail- able experimental data and with theoretical calculations reproduced in TENDL-2015 nuclear data library. New data for the formation of 57 Co, 58 Co and 54 Mn were obtained near their reaction thresholds. Other data obtained strengthen the database. Polynomial fittings of the data measured in this work as well as of all data sets (includ- ing the present data) were performed. The present data appear to be closer to theoretical calculations than the literature data. Keywords: nat Fe target, 16.7 MeV protons, stacked-foil acti- vation technique, BC 1710 cyclotron, excitation function, radiochemical separation. 1 Introduction Activation cross sections of charged-particle induced reactions are important both for theoretical considera- tions and practical applications [cf. 1–4]. In this work we measured data on iron which is used as structural mate- rial in nuclear facilities. The cross sections for the forma- tion of long-lived radioisotopes, e. g. 56 Co, 57 Co, 54 Mn, etc. are needed in several areas, for example, waste disposal studies on activated accelerator components, thin layer activation analysis, preparation of calibration sources for Mössbauer spectrometry, γ-ray spectrometry and Single Photon Emission Tomography (SPECT), etc. Furthermore, several enriched isotopes of iron are used as target mate- rials in production of non-standard positron emitters, e. g. 55 Co, 57 Ni, etc., for medical use. A few groups reported cross section data sets for several (p,x) reactions induced in the iron target, using both natural iron and a few highly enriched iron isotopes [5–23]. There are some discrepan- cies in the reported data and the information available near the reaction thresholds is rather weak. Two meas- urements using nat Fe and enriched 57 Fe as targets were reported previously from the Forschungszentrum Jülich [19, 22]. In the first work the emphasis was on the funda- mental analysis of reaction mechanisms whereas in the second paper more accurate data for applications were presented. Recently special attention has been devoted to lower energy region (<5 MeV), and the results for nat Ni and 60 Ni targets have been reported [3, 24]. Now we measured the data on nat Fe with particular emphasis on the energy range near the reaction threshold. For determining very low cross sections of 54 Mn, radiochemical separation was performed. The data were compared with nuclear model *Corresponding author: Md. Shuza Uddin, Tandem Accelerator Facilities, Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh; and Institut für Neurowissenschaften und Medizin, INM-5: Nuklearchemie, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany, E-mail: md.shuzauddin@yahoo.com Animesh Kumer Chakraborty: Tandem Accelerator Facilities, Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh; and Department of Physics, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Chittagong, Bangladesh Stefan Spellerberg, Ingo Spahn and Syed M. Qaim: Institut für Neurowissenschaften und Medizin, INM-5: Nuklearchemie, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany Md. Asad Shariff: Tandem Accelerator Facilities, Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh Md. Abdur Rashid: Department of Physics, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Chittagong, Bangladesh Bereitgestellt von | Forschungszentrum Juelich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 25.01.18 15:59