Characterisation of thin solid Xe targets

Abstract

A series of frozen xenon targets of thicknesses ranging between 1 and 15 mg/cm2 were characterised by elastic backscattering technique using a 3 MeV proton beam. Xenon was kept solid on a gold substrate having a thickness of 1 g/cm2 which was mounted on a cold copper finger. The temperature of targets during the experiment was maintained at 55 K by a compact solid nitrogen sub-limation system under pressure of 10 mbar. Targets were used in series of experiments for populating samarium and gadolinium isotopes in the 136Xe (18O, Xn) and 136Xe (22Ne, Xn) nuclear reactions.