Scientists at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia announced internally that they had succeeded in detecting the decay of a new element in January 2010, and the results have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
The two-year experimental campaign began at the High Flux Isotope Reactor in Oak Ridge with a 250-day irradiation to produce 22 mg of berkelium. This was followed by 90 days of processing at Oak Ridge to separate and purify the berkelium, target preparation at the Research Institute for Advanced Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, 150 days of bombardment at one of the world’s most powerful heavy ion accelerators at Dubna, data analysis at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Dubna, and assessment and review of the results by the team. The entire process was driven by the 320-day half-life of the berkelium target material.
The experiment produced six atoms of element 117. For each atom, the team observed the alpha decay from element 117 to 115 to 113 and so on until the nucleus fissioned, splitting into two lighter elements. In total, 11 new “neutron-rich” isotopes were produced, bringing researchers closer to the presumed “island of stability” of superheavy elements.
More of this article is available at www.gizmag.com
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