Within the framework of the proximity formalism, we present a systematic study to analyze the effects of the α-decay energy through the effective sharp radius parameter on the α-decay half-lives of 227 nuclei in the range 61 ≤ Z ≤ 99. Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) calculations with the proximity potential Zhang 2013 are carried out to obtain the theoretical values of the α-decay half-lives. In this work, we introduce a new Qα-dependent (QD) form of the effective sharp radius which significantly reduces the standard deviation of estimated half-lives using the Zhang 2013 model in comparison with the corresponding experimental data in our selected mass range. We evaluate the validity of this simple formula using the Geiger-Nuttall (GN) plots and semi-empirical formulas. The modified form of the Zhang 2013 model is also found to work well in α-decay studies of superheavy nuclei (SHN) with Z = 117 - 120. Our results reveal that the calculated half-lives for the use of new proposed form of the effective sharp radius in the proximity potential can reproduce the closed-shell effects at neutron magic number N = 126 and N = 184.

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