Fabrication of ¹⁹⁷Au-backed Silicon target for In-beam Gamma-ray spectroscopy experiment

The fabrication of stable 197 Au-backed natural Si targets with a thickness ranging from ∼ 400 μg/cm 2 to ∼ 1.1 mg/cm 2 using an electron beam evaporation technique is discussed. In one of the attempts, a graphite sheet was used as an evaporation source, which proves to be an efficient method in terms of minimal wastage of source material. Characterizations of the fabricated targets using various technique revealed that the targets were uniform in thickness and had negligible contamination. The optimization of evaporation parameters in the present work enhances the potential for future fabrication of isotopically enriched Si targets.