Role of an in-house designed crucible in the fabrication of isotopically enriched 28Si target for an in-beam γ-ray spectroscopy experiment

Subodh; Abhilash S R; Madan Sharma; Ashutosh Kapil; R P Singh; B R Behera

doi:10.1063/5.0213676

Role of an in-house designed crucible in the fabrication of isotopically enriched 28Si target for an in-beam γ-ray spectroscopy experiment

Rev Sci Instrum. 2024 Aug 1;95(8):085104. doi: 10.1063/5.0213676.

Authors

Subodh¹, Abhilash S R², Madan Sharma³, Ashutosh Kapil¹, R P Singh², B R Behera¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014, India.
² Inter University Accelerator Center, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi 110067, India.
³ Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016, India.

PMID: 39093121
DOI: 10.1063/5.0213676

Abstract

In the present work, an in-house designed special crucible was developed to fabricate isotopically enriched 28Si targets for a γ-ray spectroscopy experiment. Initially, the crucible was tested with natural Si and then utilized to fabricate isotopically enriched 28Si targets of thickness ∼500 μg/cm2 (∼2.15 μm). The fabricated targets were uniform in thickness and had very little contamination. In addition, one of the fabricated targets was successfully utilized in an in-beam γ-ray spectroscopy experiment. The technique employed in the present work not only facilitates the fabrication of stable and pure targets but also minimizes the wastage of the source material. As a result, these efforts pave the way for future fabrication of low-abundance isotopically enriched nuclear physics targets.