Measurement and analysis of excitation functions for alpha-induced reactions in copper

Excitation functions for the production of⁶⁸Ga,⁶⁷Ga,⁶⁶Ga,⁶⁵Ga +⁶⁵Zn and⁶¹Cu fromα-induced reactions in natural copper have been measured in the energy range ≈ 10–40 MeV using the stacked foil technique. A stack of nine copper foils was irradiated by a 40 MeVα-beam. Theγ-rays emitted from the irradiated samples were recorded. Excitation functions have also been calculated theoretically using a statistical model with and without the inclusion of pre-equilibrium emission of particles. Pre-equilibrium component simulated by exciton model shows that the inclusion of pre-equilibrium emission gives better agreement between experimental and theoretical excitation functions. Pre-equilibrium fraction depends on the incident energy and the target mass number.