Abstract
Since 2000, six new super-heavy elements with atomic numbers 113 through 118 have been synthesized in hot fusion reactions of 48Ca beams on actinide targets. These target materials, including 242Pu, 244Pu, 243Am, 245Cm, 248Cm, 249Cf, and 249Bk, are available in very limited quantities and require specialized production and processing facilities resident in only a few research centers worldwide. This report describes the production and chemical processing of heavy actinide materials for super-heavy element research, current availabilities of these materials, and related target fabrication techniques. The impact of actinide materials in super-heavy element discovery is reviewed, and strategies for enhancing the production of rare actinides including 249Bk, 251Cf, and 254Es are described.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 99-116 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Nuclear Physics A |
| Volume | 944 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 15 2015 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT–Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). Actinide targets for super-heavy element synthesis using 48 Ca beams have included 238 U, 237 Np, 242,244 Pu, 243 Am, 245,248 Cm, 249 Bk, and 249 Cf, with all target materials heavier than uranium produced in nuclear reactors. Many of these actinide materials have been obtained from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and from the Research Institute for Advanced Reactors (RIAR) at Dmitrovgrad. At ORNL, the combination of the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center (REDC) provides a unique resource for the production and chemical processing of actinides. ORNL is also the repository for actinide isotopes for the Isotope Development and Production for Research and Applications Program of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Physics. Current inventories of selected actinide materials at ORNL are summarized in Table 2 . This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, Isotope Development and Production for Research and Applications Program, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT–Battelle, LLC. We are grateful to the staffs of the ORNL Radiochemical Engineering Development Center and the ORNL High Flux Isotope Reactor, a DOE Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences User Facility, for their support in the production and chemical separation of actinide materials. We also thank our many collaborators at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions (JINR, Dubna, Russia), GSI (Darmstadt, Germany), University of Mainz (Mainz, Germany), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, without whom this research would not have been possible.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Battelle | |
| Office of Science | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| Nuclear Physics |
Keywords
- Actinide
- Actinide target
- Berkelium
- Californium
- Einsteinium
- Super-heavy element
