Experimental studies on excitation functions of the proton-induced activation reactions on yttrium.

Proton-induced activation cross-sections were measured for the (89)Y(p,x)(89,88,86)Zr, (89)Y(p,x)(88,87,87 m,86)Y, (89)Y(p,x)(85,83,82)Sr and (89)Y(p,x)(84,83)Rb reactions by a stacked foil technique in the energy range 15-80 MeV which was covered by two separate measurements for 15-50 and 32-80 MeV energy range with 50 and 80 MeV incident protons. The differences between the results of two irradiations were found within 6% in the overlapping energy regions. The production yields for the long-lived products like (88)Zr, and (88)Y are significantly larger than that of (nat)Mo+p, (nat)Nb+p and (nat)Zr+p processes. The productions of the medical isotopes, (85)Sr and (83)Sr are also effective by Y+p process using an 80 MeV beam. Thick target integral yields were also deduced using the measured cross-sections. The (87)Y, (88)Y, (88)Zr and (89)Zr radionuclides have suitable yields and decay characteristics important for thin-layer activation (TLA) analysis.