Isotopes of polonium

Polonium (Po) has 25 known isotopes, all of which are radioactive. They have atomic masses that range from 194u to 218u. ²¹⁰Po is the most widely available. ²⁰⁹Po (half-life 103 years) and ²⁰⁸Po (half-life 2.9 years) can be made through the alpha, proton, or deuteron bombardment of lead or bismuth in a cyclotron.

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²¹⁰Po

²¹⁰Po is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.376 days; it decays directly to its daughter isotope ²⁰⁶Pb. A milligram of ²¹⁰Po emits as many alpha particles per second as 4.215 grams of ²²⁶Ra. A few curies (1 curie equals 37 gigabecquerels) of ²¹⁰Po emit a blue glow which is caused by excitation of surrounding air. A single gram of ²¹⁰Po generates 140 watts of power.^[1] Because it emits many alpha particles, which are stopped within a very short distance in dense media and release their energy, ²¹⁰Po has been used as a lightweight heat source to power thermoelectric cells in artificial satellites; for instance, ²¹⁰Po heat source was also used in each of the Lunokhod rovers deployed on the surface of the Moon, to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights.^[2] Some anti-static brushes contain up to 500 microcuries of ²¹⁰Po as a source of charged particles for neutralizing static electricity in materials like photographic film.^[3]

The majority of the time ²¹⁰Po decays by emission of an alpha particle only, not by emission of an alpha particle and a gamma ray. About one in 100,000 decays results in the emission of a gamma ray.^[4] This low gamma ray production rate makes it more difficult to find and identify this isotope. Rather than gamma ray spectroscopy, alpha spectroscopy is the best method of measuring this isotope.

Former names of isotopes

Isotopes of polonium occurring within the radioactive disintegration chains of actinium, radium and thorium were known as:

• radium F : ²¹⁰Po
• actinium C^I : ²¹¹Po
• thorium C^I : ²¹²Po
• radium C^I : ²¹⁴Po
• actinium A : ²¹⁵Po
• thorium A : ²¹⁶Po
• radium A : ²¹⁸Po

Table

Notes

• Values marked # are not purely derived from experimental data, but at least partly from systematic trends. Spins with weak assignment arguments are enclosed in parentheses.
• Uncertainties are given in concise form in parentheses after the corresponding last digits. Uncertainty values denote one standard deviation, except isotopic composition and standard atomic mass from IUPAC which use expanded uncertainties.
• Half-life abbreviations are a=annum(year), d=day, min=minute, s=second, ms=millisecond, µs=microsecond, ns=nanosecond.
• A superscripted m (or m2, etc.) refers to an isomer of that particular isotope.

References

1. ^ Polonium, Argonne National Laboratory
2. ^ Andrew Wilson, Solar System Log, (London: Jane's Publishing Company Ltd, 1987), p. 64.
3. ^ http://www.amstat.com/solutions/staticmaster.html
4. ^ http://atom.kaeri.re.kr/cgi-bin/decay?Po-210%20A

• Isotope masses from Ame2003 Atomic Mass Evaluation by G. Audi, A.H. Wapstra, C. Thibault, J. Blachot and O. Bersillon in Nuclear Physics A729 (2003).
• Isotopic compositions and standard atomic masses from Atomic weights of the elements. Review 2000 (IUPAC Technical Report). Pure Appl. Chem. Vol. 75, No. 6, pp. 683-800, (2003) and Atomic Weights Revised (2005).
• Half-life, spin, and isomer data selected from these sources. Editing notes on this article's talk page.
  • Audi, Bersillon, Blachot, Wapstra. The Nubase2003 evaluation of nuclear and decay properties, Nuc. Phys. A 729, pp. 3-128 (2003).
  • National Nuclear Data Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Information extracted from the NuDat 2.1 database (retrieved Sept. 2005).
  • David R. Lide (ed.), Norman E. Holden in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 85th Edition, online version. CRC Press. Boca Raton, Florida (2005). Section 11, Table of the Isotopes.