Deuteron and alpha-particle-induced nuclear reactions on Sc-45: activation cross section measurement and thick target yield evaluation

Systematic measurements of nuclear reaction cross sections were done in the low energy range for the two reactions Sc-45(d,p)Sc-46 and Sc-45(alpha,n)V-48. Thin foils of high-purity (99.95%) natural Sc targets (100% Sc-45), purchased from Good-Fellow, were irradiated with 10 and 20 MeV incident deuteron and alpha-particle energies, respectively, at beam current of 100 nA using MGC-20 cyclotron. For precise measurements, high-purity Ti and Cu foils were used for monitoring the actual deuteron and alpha-particle beam intensities, respectively. The conventional stacked-foil technique was applied for measurement and calculation of the cross section values using a high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer for measuring the radioactivity. Nuclear model code EMPIRE-3.2 was used for calculation of the investigated excitation functions. The obtained results were compared with the experimental values and TENDEL-2021 data which are based on TALYS-1.96 code calculations. The integrated yields for the two reactions, based on the proposed average excitation functions, were estimated.