Berkeley Lab bridges the gap in the quest for superheavy element 120

The Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has been credited with discovering 16 of the 118 currently known elements, and this number may soon increase.

An international team of scientists led by the Heavy Element Group from Berkeley Lab has announced that they have successfully synthesised the superheavy element 116 using a titanium beam. The breakthrough study was announced during the Nuclear Structure 2024 conference. Details are described in a scientific article on the arXiv database.

Creating superheavy elements involves combining two lighter elements, which is very difficult and often requires billions of attempts. The heaviest practical target in these experiments is californium-249, which has 98 protons. To create element 120, scientists use a beam of titanium-50 atoms instead of the commonly used beam of calcium-48.

Now, the team has produced two atoms of livermorium using a beam of titanium particles. Scientists utilised a 2.2-metre heavy ion accelerator (cyclotron) for this purpose.

"It was an important first step to try to make something a little bit easier than a new element to see how going from a calcium beam to a titanium beam changes the rate at which we produce these elements," said Jennifer Pore, a scientist from Berkeley Lab's Heavy Element Group. "Creating element 116 with titanium validates that this method of production works and we can now plan our hunt for element 120."

Preparations are underway to create element 120, with experiments set to begin next year. This process will not be easy and may take several years. Only a few atoms of element 120 will likely be produced.

"We want to figure out the limits of the atom, and the limits of the periodic table," said Jacklyn Gates, a nuclear scientist at Berkeley Lab. "The superheavy elements we know so far don't live long enough to be useful for practical purposes, but we don't know what the future holds. Maybe it's a better understanding of how the nucleus works, or maybe it's something more."

As reported by TechSpot, if element 120 is discovered, it will be the heaviest created atom, placed in the eighth row of the periodic table. It would be in the theoretical area of superheavy elements called the "island of stability." Atoms from this island have unique properties. Unlike the superheavy elements discovered so far, which decay almost immediately, a stable combination of protons and neutrons could create a longer-lasting nucleus, allowing for more detailed studies.