Investigation of (d,x) nuclear reactions on natural ytterbium up to 24 MeV

Production cross-sections of the natYb(d,x)169,170,171,172,173,174m,174,176m,177gLu and 169,175,177Yb reactions have been measured from a 24-MeV deuteron energy down to their respective thresholds by using a stacked-foil activation technique combined with high resolution γ-ray spectrometry. Our new experimental data extended the experimental database toward the lower energy region for 169Yb, 171Lu, 172Lu, and 176mLu, and the higher region for 174Lu, 176mLu, and 177Yb. An overall good agreement is found with some of the earlier measurements, whereas a partial agreement is obtained with the theoretical data extracted from the TENDL-2013 library. The (d,p) channel contribution underestimated by the TENDL-2013 library is successfully reproduced in the global renormalization by Ignatyuk for the FENDL-3.0 library. The production cross-sections of 175Yb available in the literature were revised based on the latest γ-ray intensity adopted in 2004. Physical thick target yields for the investigated reaction products were also deduced and compared with the directly measured ones in the literature. The derived thick target yields for 173Lu and 174gLu are higher than the directly measured ones by Dmitriev et al. at 22 MeV. The deduced yield curves indicate that a low energy (<11 MeV) cyclotron and a highly enriched 176Yb target could be used to obtain 177gLu with negligible impurity from 177mLu.