Modeling and experimental data of zirconium-89 production yield.

The radionuclide zirconium-89 can be employed for the positron emission tomography (PET). In this study 89 Zr excitation function via 89 Y(p,n)89 Zr reaction was calculated by the TALYS-1.8 code based on microscopic level density model. The formation of 89 Zr was simulated using the Monte Carlo simulation code MCNPX to calculate the integral yield in the 89 Y target body for threshold up to 40MeV incident-proton energy. The target thickness was based on calculation of the stopping power using the SRIM-2013 code matched to any incident-proton energy. The production yield of the 89 Zr simulated with the Monte Carlo method for the 89 Y(p,n)89 Zr, 89 Y(d,2n)89 Zr, nat Sr(α,xn)89 Zr and nat Zr(p,pxn)89 Zr reactions and the results were in good agreement with published experimental results for the optimum energy range. An experimental yield of 53.1MB/µA for the 15MeV proton-induced on Y2 O3 powder as a disk-target obtained for 1h irradiation at the AMIRS cyclotron.