Activation cross-sections of proton-induced nuclear reactions on natural zinc in the energy range of 4–30 MeV

Abstract

In the present work, the excitation functions for the proton-induced nuclear reactions on natural zinc were measured in the energy range of 4–30 MeV using the well-established stacked-foil activation procedure. The activation products were measured based on their characteristic gamma lines using HPGe γ-ray spectrometry. The radioactivities determined were used for the calculation of cross-sections of the radionuclides of interest, i.e., ⁶¹Cu, ^62,65,69mZn, ⁵⁷Co and ^66,67,68Ga. The cross-sections have also been compared with the available literature data and the theoretical prediction of the TALYS code via its latest TENDL-2023 library as well as the prediction of EMPIRE-3.2.2 model code. The results show a reasonable agreement when compared with the available literature data. This work, however, shows that the theoretical data extracted from the TENDL-2023 library and EMPIRE-3.2.2 default calculation significantly underestimate the experimental cross-sections of ⁵⁷Co nuclide while they overestimate those of ^69mZn. The present result has potential applications to improve the predicting capability of the model codes as well as to serve as additional data for the nuclear reaction cross-section database.