Three diverse target preparations: 14C (12 mg/cm2), 71Ga24Mg (12 mg/cm271Ga, 3 mg/cm224Mg), and 66,67Zn (1.8–14.9 mg/cm2)

A natural-carbon analog of fluffy, intractable 14C powder was produced. With it, a method was developed to produce a pressed disk of 14C of 12.7-mg/cm2 thickness and 1.27-cm diameter, bound with 2.1 wt.% of adhesive. Aluminized Mylar cover foils and a fritted-disc filter were used to contain the target for (p, p′) experiments. Reduction of 71Ga2O3 to the metal was accomplished with an efficiency of 94.3% in a small electroplating cell. Magnesium was chosen as the companion element because 50 at.% could be tolerated in the (p, n) experiment, and GaMg has a melting point of 646 K. A 1.27-cm diameter target, supported at the edge by a Mg foil, was produced in several simple steps. Directly rollable 66,67Zn foils were obtained from an electroplating cell with a Pt screen anode and a highly polished tungsten-carbide cathode. Plating times of 3 h provided metal-recovery efficiencies ranging from 94.2 to 96.5%. The as-deposited foils had many holes but were hole-free and shiny after reduction of 25% by pack rolling.