Curium-244

Main isotopes of curium

Iso­tope Decay abun­dance half-life mode energy (MeV) pro­duct 242Cm syn 160 d SF – – α 6.1 238Pu 243Cm syn 29.1 y α 6.169 239Pu ε 0.009 243Am SF – – 244Cm syn 18.1 y SF – – α 5.8048 240Pu 245Cm syn 8500 y SF – – α 5.623 241Pu 246Cm syn 4730 y α 5.475 242Pu SF – – 247Cm syn 1.56×107 y α 5.353 243Pu 248Cm syn 3.40×105 y α 5.162 244Pu SF – – 250Cm syn 9000 y SF – – α 5.169 246Pu β− 0.037 250Bk

Curium (Cm) is an artificial element with an atomic number of 96. Because it is an artificial element, a standard atomic weight cannot be given, and it has no stable isotopes. The first isotope synthesized was ²⁴²Cm in 1944, which has 146 neutrons. All of the isotopes are radioactive.

There are 21 known radioisotopes with atomic masses ranging from ²³²Cm to ²⁵²Cm. There are also four known nuclear isomers (^243mCm, ^244mCm, ^245mCm, and ^249mCm). The longest-lived isotope is ²⁴⁷Cm, with a half-life of 15.6 million years – several orders of magnitude longer than the half-life of all known nuclei of elements beyond curium in the periodic table. The shortest-lived isomer is ^244mCm with a half-life of 34 milliseconds.

No fission products
have a half-life
in the range of
100–210 k years ...

... nor beyond 15.7 M years

Legend for superscript symbols
₡  has thermal neutron capture cross section in the range of 8–50 barns
ƒ  fissile
m  metastable isomer
№  naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM)
þ  neutron poison (thermal neutron capture cross section greater than 3k barns)
†  range 4–97 y: Medium-lived fission product
‡  over 200,000 y: Long-lived fission product

...
Wikipedia