Irradiation of Zirconium-88 for purposes of Cross-section Measurement.

The intent of this project was to confirm the thermal neutron cross-section of the ZR-88 isotope of Zirconium, in preparation for more in-depth experiments at the n_TOF laboratory. A sample of Zr-88 was placed in the 3L experiment at UT’s NETL reactor and irradiated for a period of 8 hours, after which it was removed from the reactor and allowed to cool for 63.2 hours. After this rest period, the energy spectra of the sample were measured. Analysis of the spectra yielded the counting rates of Zr-88 and Zr-89 both before and after the irradiation. A Cobalt wire was irradiated alongside the sample, from which the flux of the reactor was determined. With this data the cross-section of Zr-88 was determined to be 1,102,000 +/- 166,000 barns, slightly higher than previous measurements. This analysis helped prepare for measurement of Zr-88’s thermal neutron resonance in collaboration with CERN n_TOF.