Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
these phosphorescent materials glow in dark after being exposed to visible light
while conducting experiment on uranium salts, he found that uranium salts has a
capability to blacken the photographic plate kept in a dark place wrapped through a paper
There are three types of radioactivity decays that occur in nature .These are decay ,
decay and decay.
We now define radioactive decay as the process by which unstable atomic nucleus looses
energy by emitting ionizing particles or radiations ( , and rays)
Radioactive decay of an atomic nucleus is a spontaneous process and can occur without
any interaction of other particles outside the atom
This process of radioactive decay is random and we can not predict whether a given
radioactive atom will emit radiations at a particular instant of time or not
Radioactive rays ionize the surrounding air and affect photographic plate
A beam of radioactive rays from a radium sample into three components in presence of
strong magnetic or electric fields
Alpha particles was first identified by Rutherford and Royds in 1909 by spectroscopic
method where they found traces of helium in an originally pure sample of Radon gas
which is an emitter.
222
Rn864He2+218Po84
(B) 238U924He2+234Th90
Any group of particles emitted from same type of nuclei always have definite energy
and definite velocity.
Most particles are emitted with velocities between 1.5x107 and 2.2x107.
The particles cover a definite distance in a material without any loss of intensity and
suddenly in a small distance they are absorbed completely.
The distance rays travel within a given material is called their range in that material.
Mass number and charge are conserved and the daughter product moves one place up in
the periodic table, as loss of negative charge by nucleus implies gain of positive charge.
rays cause much less ionization in air , but are 100 times more penetrating then rays.
A particular active element emits particles with energies varying between zero and a
certain maximum.
ray photons are more energetic and more penetrating then X-rays photons
Owing to their large energies ,the Gamma rays photons can dislodge electrons not only
from outer orbits( valence orbits on conduction band) of atoms but also from the inner
orbits
ii) Pair production ,in which a gamma photon is converted into a pair consisting of an
electron and a positron( particle having mass and charge equal to electron but carrying
positive change)
Let us take a radioactive sample containing N0 at time t=0 i.e, at the beginning. We wish
to calculate the number N of these nuclei left after time t.
The number of nuclei of a given radioactive sample disintegrating per sec is called the
activity of that sample is
Experimentally it is found that the activity at any instant of time t is directly proportional
to the number N of parent type nuclei present at that time
Where > 0 is proportionality constant and negative sign indicates that N decreases as t
increases
dN is the no of parent nuclei that decay between t and t+dt and we have taken N as
continuous variable
From (2)
From figure it can be noted that only half the amount of radon present initially after 3.83
days and 1/4 after 7.66 days and so on
Plot shows that in a fixed time interval a fixed fraction of the amount of radioactive
substance at the beginning of interval decays
This faction is independent of the amount of radioactive substance and depends only on
the interval of the time
a) Half Life
Time interval during which half of a given sample of radioactive substance decays is
called its half life. It is denoted by T
b) Mean Life
Individual radio atomic atoms may have life spans between zero and infinity
From curve one can see that each of dN number of radioactive nuclei has lived a life of t
sec i.e. the total life span of a dN nuclei is (dN.t) sec . Therefore equation (6) can be
written as
4) Unit of activity
There are 3.7X1010 disintegrations per sec per gram of radium .This no is taken as a
standard
=> One curie=3.7X1010 disintegrations per sec
Activity |dN/dt|=N=.693N/T
=> A very short lived substance gives rise to large activity ,even it is present in minute
quantities
5) Alpha decay:
Nucleus before the decay is called parent nucleus and after the decay is called daughter
nucleus
In Alpha decay, the parent nucleus AXZ emits an particle (=4He2) leaving behind a
daughter nucleus of four mass unit less and two charge units less i.e. A-4XZ-2
decay shift the element two places to the left in the periodic tables of elements ex
209
decay in heavy nucleus occur because a too heavy nucleus becomes unstable due to
coulomb repulsion and by emitting an particle the nucleus decrease its A and Z to
moves towards stability
Now the rest mass energy of parent nucleus AXZ is greater then the sum of rest mass
energies of A-4XZ-2 and 4He2
The difference between the rest mass energies of initial constituents and final products is
called Q-value of the process
6) Decay
Under - decay one of the neutrons in the parent nucleus gets transformed into a proton
and in the process an electron and an antineutrino are emitted
n-> p+e-+-
The daughter nucleus thus formed in - decay would be an element one place to the right
of the parent in the periodic table of elements
Examples of - decay
- is common over entire range of nuclides and amongst the naturally occurring heavy
radioactive nuclides and in fission products
In + decay one the protons of the parent nucleus gets transformed into a neutron emitting
a positron and neutrino
p->n+e++
In + decay the daughter nucleus would be one place to the left of parent nuclei in the
periodic table
Examples of + decay
Both antineutrino (-) and neutrino() are charge less and nearly less particles and interact
very weakly with matter which make their detection very difficult
In these decay( + and -) mass number A of nucleus remain same after the decay
7) Decay
After alpha or beta decay processes it is common to find the daughter nucleus to be in an
excited state
So an nucleus in excited state can make transitions from higher energy levels to lower
one by the emission of electro magnetic radiation
The energy difference in allowed energy levels of a nucleus are of the order of Mev and
the photons emitted by nuclei have energies of the order of Mev and are called rays
As an example, decay of 60Co27 nucleus gets transformed into 60Ni28 nucleus in excited
state which then de -excites to its ground state by successive emission of 1.17 Mev and
1.33 Mev gamma rays as shown in energy level diagram,