Modeling and experimental data of zirconium-89 production yield.

The radionuclide zirconium-89 can be employed for the positron emission tomography (PET). In this study Zr excitation function via Y(p,n)Zr reaction was calculated by the TALYS-1.8 code based on microscopic level density model. The formation of Zr was simulated using the Monte Carlo simulation code MCNPX to calculate the integral yield in the Y target body for threshold up to 40MeV incident-proton energy. The target thickness was based on calculation of the stopping power using the SRIM-2013 code matched to any incident-proton energy. The production yield of the Zr simulated with the Monte Carlo method for the Y(p,n)Zr, Y(d,2n)Zr, Sr(α,xn)Zr and Zr(p,pxn)Zr reactions and the results were in good agreement with published experimental results for the optimum energy range. An experimental yield of 53.1MB/µA for the 15MeV proton-induced on YO powder as a disk-target obtained for 1h irradiation at the AMIRS cyclotron.