Gamma emitter

Radionuclides which emit gamma radiation are valuable in a range of different industrial, scientific and medical technologies. This article lists some common gamma-emitting radionuclides of technological importance, and their properties.

Many artificial radionuclides of technological importance are produced as fission products within nuclear reactors. A fission product is a nucleus with approximately half the mass of a uranium or plutonium nucleus which is left over after such a nucleus has been "split" in a nuclear fission reaction.

Caesium-137 is one such radionuclide. It has a half-life of 30 years, and decays by pure beta decay to a metastable state of barium-137 (137m
Ba
). Barium-137m has a half-life of minutes and is responsible for all of the gamma ray emission. The ground state of barium-137 is stable.

The gamma ray (photon) energy of Ba-137m is about 662 keV. These gamma rays can be used, for example, in radiotherapy such as for the treatment of cancer, in food irradation, or in industrial gauges or sensors. Cs-137 is not widely used for industrial radiography as other nuclides, such as cobalt-60 or iridium-192 for example, offer higher radiation output for a given volume.

Iodine-131 is another important gamma-emitting radionuclide produced as a fission product. With a short half-life of 8 days, this radioisotope is not of practical use in radioactive sources in industrial radiography or sensing. However, since iodine is a component of biological molecules such as thyroid hormones, iodine-131 is of great importance in nuclear medicine, and in medical and biological research as a radioactive tracer.

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