Artificial radioactivity
Radiactividad artificial
- Date
- 1934 · confidence high
- Place
- Radium Institute, Paris, France
- Credited to
- Irène Joliot-Curie; Frédéric Joliot
- People
- 👤 Irene Joliot-Curie1897–1956👤 Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie1900–1958
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
By bombarding aluminium with alpha particles the Joliot-Curies create phosphorus-30, a radioactive isotope that does not exist in nature. Humans can manufacture radioactive elements, which opens the way to nuclear medicine and isotope production.
1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Marie Curie saw the result months before she died. Merged with 'Artificial radioactivity (synthetic radioisotopes)' (duplicate, 23-09-2026).
What it led to
- Nuclear medicine and tracers
- Fermi's work with neutrons (1934) and fission
- Industrial production of radioisotopes
- Nuclear chemistry
- Radiopharmaceuticals and nuclear medicine
- Tracers in biochemistry (Hevesy)
- Synthesis of transuranium elements
Built on
- Natural radioactivity1896
- The positron: discovery of antimatter1932
- Rutherford's transmutation
- Polonium sources from the Radium Institute
- Rutherford's transmutation (1919)
Made possible
- Nuclear fission1938
- Radiocarbon dating1946-1949
- Scintigraphy and PET
- Tracers in biology and agriculture
- Radiation sterilisation
- medical cyclotrons
- PET and gamma imaging