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synthetic element | [History]
The discovery
of Seaborgium, Element 106, took place in 1974 almost
simultaneously at the Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory and at
the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna, Russia. The
Berkeley Group, under direction of Ghiorso, used the Super-Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator (Super HILAC) as a source of
heavy 18O ions to bombard a 259-μg target of 249Cf. This resulted
in the production and positive identification of 263106,
which decayed with a half-life of 0.9 ± 0.2 s by the emission of
alpha particles.
The Dubna Team, directed by Flerov and Organessian, produced
heavy ions of 54Cr with their 310-cm heavy-ion cyclotron
to bombard 207Pb and 208Pb and found a product that
decayed with a half-life of 7 ms. They assigned 259106 to this
isotope. It is now thought seven isotopes of Seaborgium have
been identified. Two of the isotopes are believed to have halflives
of about 30 s. Seaborgium most likely would have properties
resembling tungsten. The IUPAC adopted the name
Seaborgium in August 1997. Normally the naming of an element
is not given until after the death of the person for which
the element is named; however, in this case, it was named
while Dr. Seaborg was still alive. |
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