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Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
The decay scheme of a radioactive substance is a graphical presentation of all the transitions occurring in a decay, and of their relationships. Examples are shown below. It is useful to think of the decay scheme as placed in a coordinate system, where the vertical axis is energy, increasing from bottom to top, and the horizontal axis is the proton number, increasing from left to right.
Radiation and radioactive substances are used for diagnosis, treatment, and research. X-rays, for example, pass through muscles and other soft tissue but are stopped by dense materials. This property of X-rays enables doctors to find broken bones and to locate cancers that might be growing in the body. [7]
The stages or steps in a decay chain are referred to by their relationship to previous or subsequent stages. Hence, a parent isotope is one that undergoes decay to form a daughter isotope. For example element 92, uranium, has an isotope with 144 neutrons (236 U) and it decays into an isotope of element 90, thorium, with 142 neutrons (232 Th ...
Photodisintegration (also called phototransmutation, or a photonuclear reaction) is a nuclear process in which an atomic nucleus absorbs a high-energy gamma ray, enters an excited state, and immediately decays by emitting a subatomic particle.
Radioactive decay is the process in which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by emitting ionizing particles and radiation. This decay, or loss of energy, results in an atom of one type (called the parent nuclide ) transforming to an atom of a different type (called the daughter nuclide ).
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For example, 3 H is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. It decays into 3 He with a half-life of ~12.3 years. By comparison, stable isotopes do not undergo radioactive decay, and their fixed proportions are measured against exponentially decaying proportions of radioactive isotopes to determine the age of a substance.