Evaluation of nuclear reaction cross sections for optimization of production of the non-standard positron emitting radionuclide Nb using proton induced reactions on Zr target.

Niobium-90 radionuclide is one of the promising candidates for the positron emission tomography (PET) technique. In this study, Nb excitation functions via Zr(p,n) and Zr(p,xn) reactions were computed using the TALYS-1.95 code based on phenomenological and microscopic level density models.