Study of excitation functions of alpha-particle induced nuclear reactions on holmium for 167Tm production

167Tm is a candidate radioisotope for both nuclear medicine diagnostics and therapy due to its emitted Auger-electrons, low energy X- and gamma-rays. In the frame of a systematic study of excitation functions for production of medically relevant radioisotopes by charged particle induced reactions on rare earths, the 165Ho(α,2n)167Tm reaction and the 165Ho(α,n)168Tm, 165Ho(α,3n)166Tm, 165Ho(α,4n)165Tm side reactions were measured up to 40 MeV by the stacked foil irradiation technique and gamma-ray spectroscopy. The measured results were compared to the ALICE-IPPE and EMPIRE-II theoretical curves. Thick target yields, impurity levels and specific activities were deduced and compared with the same parameters for other charged particle production routes of 167Tm.