Berkeley Lab’s titanium beam targets one goal: Making the heaviest element yet

July 25, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
Scientist Jacklyn Gates at the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator used to separate atoms of element 116, livermorium. (Photo: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab)

A plutonium target bombarded with a beam of titanium-50 in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 88-Inch Cyclotron for 22 days has yielded two atoms of the superheavy element 116, in a proof of concept that gives Berkeley Lab researchers a path to pursue the heaviest element yet—element 120. The result was announced July 23 at the Nuclear Structure 2024 conference; a paper has been submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters and published on arXiv.