Activation cross sectons of the 64Ni(d,2n) reaction for the production of the medical radioisotope 64Cu

Deuteron particle induced reactions for generation of Cu-64 used in diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine and its possible short lived contaminant Cu-61 were investigated with the stacked foil activation technique on natural nickel targets up to E-d = 20.5 MeV. Excitation functions for the reactions Ni-64(d,2n)Cu-64 and Ni-nat(d,x)Cu-61 are obtained by gamma spectroscopy and are compared with earlier literature values. Thick target yields have been deduced from the experimental cross sections and the predictive capability of the ALICE-IPPE, EMPIRE II and GNASH model codes is tested. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.