Activation cross-sections of proton induced reactions on natHf in the 38–65 MeV energy range: Production of 172Lu and of 169Yb

Highlights: • Proton induced nuclear reactions on natural hafnium up to 65 MeV. • Stacked foil irradiation technique. • Comparison with the TENDL model calculations. • Cross sections of Ta, Hf, Lu and Yb radioisotopes. • Physical yield. • Production routes of medically relevant ¹⁷²Lu, ¹⁷²Hf, ¹⁶⁹Yb and ¹⁶⁹Lu radioisotopes. In the frame of a systematical study of light ion induced nuclear reactions on hafnium, activation cross sections for proton induced reactions were investigated. Excitation functions were measured in the 38–65 MeV energy range for the ^natHf(p,xn)^{180g,177,176,175,173}Ta, ^natHf(p,x)^{180m,179m,175,173,172,171}Hf, ^{177g,173,172,171,170,169}Lu and ^natHf(p,x)¹⁶⁹Yb reactions by using the activation method, combining stacked foil irradiation and off line gamma ray spectroscopy. The experimental results are compared with earlier results in the overlapping energy range, and with the theoretical predictions of the ALICE IPPE and EMPIRE theoretical codes and of the TALYS code reported in the TENDL-2015 and TENDL-2017 libraries. The production routes of ¹⁷²Lu (and its parent ¹⁷²Hf) and of ¹⁶⁹Yb are reviewed.