Excitation functions were measured by stacked-foil activation technique for the $^{150}$Nd(p, xpyn) reaction using 97.65$%$ enriched $^{150}$Nd target. Measurement up to $sim$50$%$ above barrier and down to 18$%$ below the barrier was performed using
proton beam energy (E$_p$) of 7 - 15 MeV from VECC Cyclotron. The yield of suitable $gamma$ rays emitted following the decay of relevant evaporation residues was determined using a 50$%$ High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector.(p,n) cross section was found to follow the expected trend with a maximum value of 63.7(4.9)mb at E$_p$ $sim$ 8.6 MeV. (p,2n) cross section gradually increased with E$_p$ and had maximum contribution to the total reaction cross section after E$_p$ $sim$ 9.0 MeV. (p, p$^{prime}$n) reaction channel also showed a reasonable yield with a threshold of E$_p$ $sim$ 12.0 MeV. The experimental data were corroborated with statistical model calculations using different codes, viz., CASCADE, ALICE/91 and EMPIRE3.1. All the calculations using a suitable set of global parameters could reproduce the excitation function fairly well in the present energy range.
The end point energies of nuclear $beta$ decays have been measured with a segmented planar Ge LEPS detector using both singles and coincidence techniques. The $beta - gamma$ coincidence has been performed with a segmented planar Ge LEPS and a single
10$%$ HPGe detector. The $gamma$ ray and $beta$ particle responses of the Segmented planer Ge LEPS detector were studied using monte carlo simulation code GEANT3. The experimentally obtained $beta$ spectrum was in reasonably good agreement with the simulation results. The experimental end point energies are determined with substantial accuracy for some of the known $beta$ decays in $^{106}$Rh, $^{210}$Bi and $^{90}$Y. The end point energies corresponding to three weak branches in $^{106}$Rh $rightarrow$ $^{106}$Pd decay has been measured for the first time.
Electron Capture (EC) decay of $^{146}$Gd($it{t_{1/2}}$ = 48d) to the low lying states of $^{146}$Eu has been studied using high-resolution $gamma$ ray spectroscopy. The $^{146}$Gd activity was produced by ($alpha$, 2n) reaction at E$_{alpha}$ = 32 M
eV using 93.8% enriched $^{144}$Sm target. The level structure has been considerably modified from the measurement of $gamma$ ray singles, $gammagamma$ coincidences and decay half lives. Lifetime measurement has been performed for the 3$^-$ (114.06 keV) and 2$^-$ (229.4 keV) levels of $^{146}$Eu using Mirror Symmetric Centroid Difference (MSCD) method with LaBr$_3$ (Ce) detectors. The lifetimes for these two states have been found to be 5.38 $pm$ 2.36 ps and 8.38 $pm$ 2.19 ps respectively. Shell model calculation has been performed using OXBASH code in order to interpret the results.
