New measurement and evaluation of the excitation function of Ni(p,n) reaction for the production of Cu

One of the radioisotopes for which a growing interest exists in nuclear medicine is ⁶⁴Cu. Its branched decay makes it suitable for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Activation cross sections of the proton induced reaction on enriched ⁶⁴Ni have been studied using the stacked foil technique up to 24 MeV. The experimental cross sections are compared with values available from literature. Thick target yields, based on the discrete measured values of the cross sections are calculated and allow a better estimation of the optimum production parameters.