Cross-section measurements of the 93Nb(p,n)93mMo reaction up to 17 MeV

The nuclear reaction cross-sections of the 93Nb(p,n)93mMo process were measured in three experiments up to 17 MeV proton energy by using the stacked target foil technique. The target stacks were irradiated at the cyclotron JSW BC 1710 at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, INM-5. The natCu(p,x)62/63Zn reactions were used as monitor reactions to determine the proton particle flux and the incident proton energy. The experimental results were compared with literature data and with theoretical nuclear model calculations based on the TALYS-1.96 code and the data from TENDL-2023. Furthermore, it could be shown that the 93Nb(p,n)93mMo reaction delivers sufficient amounts of activity for the later application of 93mMo as a tracer to optimize the radiochemical separation of low specific activity 99Mo and 99mTc.