by In a feat of modern alchemy, scientists have used a beam of vaporized titanium to create one of the heaviest elements on Earth – and they think this new method could pave the way to even greater horizons.
This is the first time the new technique – which involves heating a piece of the rare isotope titanium-50 to nearly 1650°C (3000°F) to release ions that are beamed towards another element – has successfully created a superheavy element has produced, levermorium. .
Livermorium was first synthesized in 2000, and it’s not the heaviest element humans have made (that would be oganesson, atomic number 118).
So what’s the big deal if a few atoms of livermorium recently formed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – those who keep track of the periodic table might ask? Livermorium is ‘so Y2K’ and has only 116 protons.
But fusing a titanium beam with plutonium to create livermorium is just a test run for much bigger (or rather heavier) things. The scientists hope to create an element that will be the heaviest ever produced: unbinilium, with 120 protons.
“This reaction had never been demonstrated before, and it was essential to prove that it was possible before we began our attempt to make 120,” said nuclear chemist Jacklyn Gates of Berkeley Lab, who led the research.
Calcium-48, with its 20 protons, is the preferred beam because its “magic number” of protons and neutrons makes it more stable, allowing it to fuse with its target.
Titanium-50 isn’t ‘magic’, but it has the 22 protons needed to reach those heavier atomic weights, without being so heavy that it simply falls apart.
“It was an important first step to try to make something simpler than a new element, to see how the transition from a calcium beam to a titanium beam changes the rate at which we produce these elements,” explains physicist Jennifer Pore of Berkeley Lab. .
“Creating element 116 with titanium confirms that this production method works and we can now plan our hunt for element 120.”
The team took 22 days to work with Berkeley Lab’s 88-inch cyclotron, which accelerates titanium’s heavy ions into a beam powerful enough to fuse with its target. In the end it yielded only two measly livermorium atoms.
Creating unbinilium using this method, by aiming the beam at californium-249, will be much faster than previous routes could provide, but it will still be a chore.
“We think it will take about ten times longer to make 120 than 116,” says nuclear physicist Reiner Kruecken of Berkeley Lab.
This marks a return to the superheavy element race for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab, a leader in elemental discoveries in the 20th century.
Scientists around the world have been in the race to produce unbinilium since 2006, when a Russian team from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research made the first attempt. Scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Germany made several attempts between 2007 and 2012, but without rolling the dice.
With researchers from the US, China and Russia throwing their hats into the ring, you have to wonder what exactly the future applications could be.
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“It is very important that the US gets back into this race, because superheavy elements are very important scientifically,” nuclear physicist Witold Nazarewicz, who was not involved in the research, told Robert Service of Science.
Element 120 is located near the theoretical ‘Island of Stability’, a paradise for superheavy elements where half-lives are luxuriously long, thanks to their ‘magic numbers’ of protons and neutrons.
These long-lived, stable superheavy elements are expected to provide scientists with the opportunity to study the extremes of atomic behavior, test nuclear physics models and map the boundaries of atomic nuclei.
This article was published in Physical Assessment Letters.
An earlier version of this article appeared in August 2024.
