Measurement of neutron capture cross sections of Tc-99

For studies on nuclear transmutation of long-lived fission products(LLFPs) in a fast reactor, detailed characteristics of reactor core such as transmutation performance have to be investigated, so accurate neutron cross section data of LLFPs become necessary. Therefore, the keV-neutron capture cross sections of Tc-99, which is one of important LLFPs, were measured in the present study to obtain the accurate data. The measurement was relative to the standard capture cross sections of Au-197. A neutron time-of-flight method was adopted with a ns-pulsed neutron source by a Pelletron accelerator and a large anti-Compton Nal(Tl) gamma-ray detector. As a result, the capture cross sections of Tc-99 were obtained with the error of about 5% in the incident neutron energy region of 10 to 600 keV. The present data were compared with other experimental data and the evaluated values of JENDL-3.2, and it was found that the evaluations of JENDL-3.2 were 15-20% smaller than the present measurements. (author)