Complete Nuclear & Radio Chemistry 14+ hours of lectures

Explore the definitions and overlap of radiochemistry and nuclear chemistry, including radionuclide production, radioactive materials, chemical techniques in nuclear studies, and applications to biomedical problems.

Trace the history of nuclear science from the discovery of radioactivity and x-rays to the Curie discoveries, the plum pudding model, and the birth of radiochemistry.

Explore nuclei and nuclides, learn how isotopes share the same place on the periodic table, and examine atomic number, mass number, proton-neutron composition, and isotope separation's role in nuclear energy.

The lecture defines nuclides and clarifies related terms—isotopes, isobars, and isomeric nuclides—by mass number, atomic number, and nuclear energy state, and discusses half-lives and nuclear isomers.

Learn to notate nuclides accurately using mass number, atomic number, and energy state, and distinguish isotopes, isobars, and excited versus ground states.

Explore the quantities and units of mass and energy in nuclear science, including electron volt scales, energy–temperature connections, and the mass–energy relationship, with examples from room temperature to particle physics.

Learn how nuclear mass is defined as the rest mass of nuclides in atomic mass units using the unified atomic mass unit, and its link to relative atomic mass.

Examine the Q value, the key metric of stability in nuclear transformations, and how energy balance and kinetic energy determine spontaneity (Q>0) and product energies.

Investigate the nuclear binding energy and q value, showing how total and average binding energy per nucleon relate to nuclide stability and the liquid drop model.

Explore the mass excess concept, linking it to binding energy, mass defect, and stability, and compare mass excess, Q values, and separation energies to understand nuclear stability.

Introduce the nuclear force as a residual of the strong color force, mediated by gluons between quarks in nucleons, with short range and surface color non-neutrality.

Explore how subatomic particles are classified by spin into fermions and bosons, with leptons and quarks as elementary fermions and force carriers as bosons, and examine annihilation and generalized charges.

Explore the classification of particles into leptons, quarks, and puzzles, and examine their spin, mass relations, and how they carry fundamental forces and interact via confinement, flavor, and oscillations.

Explore the classification of subatomic particles—leptons, quarks, and bosons—and how elementary forces, including gravitational, weak, electromagnetic, and color force, govern baryons and mesons and the residual nuclear force.

Explore the color charge as a quantum number for quarks, introduce red, green, and blue as three color states, and explain how colorless composite particles form through confinement.

Analyze how the nucleus exhibits non-uniform charge and mass distributions, compare the solid-sphere and liquid-drop models, and relate radius and density to mass number.

Explore nuclear spin as the total angular momentum of nuclei, including orbital and intrinsic spin, and how electric and magnetic properties, parity, and quadrupole moments shape nuclear structure.

Examine nuclear spin as the total angular momentum and how electric multipole moments arise in centrally symmetrical nuclei, with protons, neutrons, electrons, and positrons interacting via nuclear and Coulomb potentials.

Explore the electric and magnetic properties of nuclei, including quantum tunneling and alpha decay. Explain decay constants, Q values, and magnetic moments arising from quark interactions.

Explore how the nuclear shell model explains magic numbers for protons and neutrons, and why double magic nuclei exhibit exceptional stability under short-range nuclear forces.

Explore the one-nucleon shell model, explaining magic numbers, pairing of protons and neutrons, and how spin-orbit coupling and angular momentum projections shape nuclear stability.

Explore the systematics of stable elements and nuclides, examining magic numbers, the shell model, and the like-nucleon pairing tendency.

Explain how the Weizsäcker formula and the liquid drop model describe binding energy via volume, surface, coulomb, symmetry, and pairing terms, and how protons equal neutrons signal stability.

Examine how the Weizsäcker (liquid drop) model explains binding energy patterns, mass parabolas, and even–odd effects, highlighting surface and symmetry contributions and the limits for light nuclei.

Explore the types of nuclear reactions: direct and compound, covering angular correlations and key examples: capture, stripping, pick up, fusion, fission, and neutron induced fission.

Explore reactions induced by neutrons and positive ions, detailing the geometric cross-section of nuclei, the roles of nuclear and Coulomb forces, and the energy barrier protons must overcome.

Explore reaction cross sections, their probabilistic interpretation, and how neutron and charged-particle interactions differ, including energy dependence, de Broglie wavelength effects, resonances, and typical cross-section scales (barns and millibarns).

Characterize the main decay modes and radiations, including alpha, beta (minus and plus), electron capture, gamma emission, internal conversion, spontaneous fission, and the parent–daughter nucleus relationship.

Explore the characterization of main decay modes and radiations, including alpha, beta minus, beta plus, electron capture, gamma emission, internal conversion, and spontaneous fission, with energy spectra and parent–daughter relationships.

Learn how radioactive decay differs from chemical and nuclear reactions and follows a spontaneous exponential decay law, producing parent and daughter nuclei from radioisotopes.

Explore decay rate and activity, including becquerel and curie units, and understand specific activity, activity concentration, and counting rate in radioactive samples.

Explore half-life, mean life, and the decay constant, and how the exponential decay law governs radioactive decay. Examine decay chains, secular equilibrium, and branching in decay schemes.

Explore natural radionuclides on earth, including three decay series (U-238, U-235, Th-232), key nuclides like potassium-40 and rubidium-87, and cosmogenic carbon-14, tritium, and artificial radionuclides such as cobalt-60 and cesium-177.

Explore how the chart of nuclides maps the valley of stability and shows how nuclei decay toward stability through beta, alpha, proton emission, or spontaneous fission.

Investigate the spontaneity of beta and alpha decay by analyzing Q values and mass-energy balance. Examine beta minus, beta plus, and electron capture with gamma emission to understand energy release.

Explore the spontaneity of beta and alpha decays, analyze mass-excess plots and stability patterns, and learn how positive Q values drive decay in nuclear processes.

Explore gamma decay pathways, including gamma emission and internal conversion, and understand how excited nuclei de-excite via isomer transitions, electron capture, and beta decay.

Explore spontaneous fission of heavy nuclei, producing asymmetric fission fragments and primary products with emitted neutrons and beta decays that shape independent and chain yields.

Explore exotic and rare decay modes in nuclear science. Learn about beta decays, beta-delayed emission, inverse beta decay, proton emission, and cluster decays.

Explore the kinetics of radioactivity and activation through decay chains, branching and converging branches, using decay constants and activities to explain equilibrium.

Learn decay after activation driven by neutron flux and cross sections, derive activity over time, and relate asymptotic limits to radiocarbon dating and mixed-nuclei decays.

Explore the aftereffects of radioactive decay and nuclear reactions, including recoil energies, energy and momentum sharing, and the behavior of alpha, beta, gamma emissions and neutrinos.

Examine how radioactive decay end-point energies and recoil affect beta spectra, electron vs positron emission, and gamma and x-ray emissions in Mössbauer-relevant nuclei such as iron-57.

Explore inner bremsstrahlung, x-ray production, and Auger effect as charged particles slow and atomic transitions release characteristic x-rays and cascades.

Explore how nuclear radiations interact with matter, detailing energy deposition, stopping power, and linear energy transfer, with implications for shielding, detectors, and biology.

Analyze how nuclear radiation interacts with matter and how dosimetric concepts guide protection, including absorbed dose (gray), equivalent dose (sievert), and effective dose using tissue and radiation weighting factors.

Alpha radiation interacts with matter through electromagnetic collisions with electrons, slowing the particle and causing ionization; energy loss follows a stopping power curve and a Bragg curve that defines range.

Explore how beta radiation interacts with matter, including fast electrons and positrons, with backscatter and energy distributions. Analyze absorption curves, extrapolated ranges, attenuation lengths, and atomic-number effects on stopping power.

Examine beta radiation interactions, including absorption, backscatter, positron annihilation, and positronium states, with emphasis on two- and three-photon annihilation, lifetimes, angular momentum, parity, and magnetic-field effects.

Explore the interactions of beta radiation and relativistic beta particles. See how the Super Kamiokande neutrino detector uses electron scattering to study solar neutrinos.

Explore gamma ray interactions with matter, focusing on Compton scattering, photoelectric effect, and pair production; understand energy and momentum exchange, binding effects, and recoil electron spectra.

Explore how gamma radiation interacts with matter, focusing on Compton scattering and the photoelectric effect, including binding energy, k-shell electrons, and energy distribution patterns that vary with element atomic number.

Explore gamma radiation interactions with matter, including Compton scattering, photoelectric effect, and electron-positron pair production, and examine exponential attenuation with mass and linear attenuation coefficients and mean free path.

Explore how neutrons interact through elastic and inelastic collisions, slow down in moderators like water, and undergo neutron-induced fission and neutron activation analysis, enabling thermalization and reactor energy production.

Explore how nucleosynthesis shapes cosmic element abundances from hydrogen in stars to heavier elements today. See why stability alone doesn't fix abundances, and examine nickel-62 and iron-56/58 alongside kinetic processes.

Explore helium burning and the triple-alpha process, where helium forms carbon in equilibrium with excited carbon, driving production of oxygen, neon, sodium, and magnesium in red giants.

Explore nucleosynthetic processes, including CNO cycles powering hydrogen burning and the carbon and helium burning stages in stars. Review explosive processes in supernovae forging nuclei from neon to iron peak.

Explore hydrogen burning through the proton-proton chain, oxygen burning in massive stars, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and neutron-capture processes (r-process and s-process) that synthesize heavy elements.

Explore direct measurements of ionizing radiation through tracks in cloud chambers, bubble chambers, and solid-state detectors. Learn how track density and latent images reveal particle energy, mass, and stopping power.

Explore how detectors rely on excitation and ionization to generate charge pulses in gas counters, including ionization chambers, proportional counters, and Gagan Miller tubes, with energy deposition shaping the signal.

Explore gas detectors, focusing on iron chambers, ionization processes, saturation, and grounding, while previewing proportional counters and tubes.

Discover how gas counters work, from ionization and gas multiplication in proportional and GM counters to neutron detection with boron trifluoride and fission chambers, including quenching mechanisms.

Discover how semiconductor detectors use pn junctions, donor and acceptor impurities, and a reverse-biased depletion region to collect charge from nuclear events, enabling high-statistics spectroscopy.

Explore surface barrier semiconductor detectors built from p-type and n-type silicon and their depletion with a window layer. Apply these detectors to alpha and beta spectroscopy and high-energy particle measurements.

Explore scintillation detectors, focusing on scintillators coupled to photomultiplier tubes that convert radiation-induced light into electrical pulses, and how material properties affect efficiency and radiation-type differentiation.

Explore scintillation detectors in gas, liquid, and solid states, and how photomultiplier tubes, quenching, energy resolution, and coincidence measurements affect detection of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.

Explore pulse-counting electronics for gamma spectrometry, detailing detectors, photoelectric and Compton interactions, peak formation, and phenomena like escape, backscatter, and random coincidences.

Explore energy production by nuclear fission of uranium, where heat powers turbines and electricity. Understand how neutrons, chain reactions, and cross sections shape reactor behavior across thermal and fast regimes.

Learn how slow neutrons sustain the chain reaction by moderating fast neutrons through elastic collisions with moderator nuclei. See moderators like light water, heavy water, and beryllium used in reactors.

Explore how nuclear fuel releases heat through fission of fissile isotopes like uranium and plutonium, and how the nuclear fuel cycle covers mining, refining, purifying, and disposing.

Explore fuel element design for various reactor types, focusing on cladding, heat transfer, and fuels such as uranium dioxide, uranium carbide, and metallic uranium.

Explore the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining and milling to yellow cake production, conversion and fuel fabrication, then back-end options like temporary storage, reprocessing, and disposal.

Examine the nuclear fuel cycle from converting uranium to uranium hexafluoride and enrichment by centrifuges to fabricating reactor fuel from uranium dioxide into pellets, rods, and assemblies.

Explore the nuclear fuel cycle, detailing reactor core fuel assemblies, burn up, moderators, fissile materials like uranium-235 and plutonium, fission products, and spent fuel management.

Explore how used nuclear fuel is cooled in ponds, stored on site, and reprocessed to recover uranium and plutonium for recycling into new fuel.

Master the general types of nuclear reactors, including graphite moderated and light water cooled designs, with fuels such as natural uranium and plutonium, and fast breeder concepts.

Explore thermal power reactors, focusing on pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors, their cooling and moderator roles, fuel rods and uranium dioxide, and boric acid for reactivity control.

Explore reactor kinetics by linking neutron lifetime, flux, and power to the multiplication factor; explain prompt and delayed neutrons, reactivity, excess reactivity, and fission-product decay effects on control.

Learn how radioactive waste from reactors and reprocessing is categorized into low, medium, and high level, and processed via filtration, containment, vitrification, and geological disposal of spent fuel.

Learn reactor safety, including active and passive safety systems, design basis accidents, loss of coolant scenarios, and core protection using control rods, boric acid, and containment barriers.

Explore how controlled thermonuclear (fusion) reactors use magnetic confinement to sustain deuterium-tritium plasmas, reach ignition temperatures, and convert fusion energy with lithium blankets and neutron handling.

Explore how nuclear explosives rely on fission and fusion, examine critical masses and gun-type and implosion designs, and review hydrogen bomb principles and historical uses.

Explore cosmogenic and primordial radionuclides produced by cosmic irradiation, including tritium and carbon-14, their atmospheric and hydrological reservoirs, and their use as natural tracers and radioactive clocks.

Explore the thorium and uranium decay series, tracing natural isotopes by mass number from parent to lead, radon, and polonium.

Examine transuranic elements in nature through uranium and thorium decay chains, isotopes, half-lives, natural occurrence, and implications for reactor fuels and radiochemical processes.

Explores how radium and radon enter the environment through the uranium decay chain, forming radioactive equilibrium. Highlights inhalation and groundwater hazards and impacts on building materials and coal.

Explore radiocarbon dating and how carbon-14's constant atmospheric production and 5,568-year half-life enable dating of organic materials, using mass spectrometry and isotopic corrections for depletion and cosmic ray variations.

Explore radiometric dating methods such as potassium-argon and uranium-lead to determine ages from radioactive decay. Analyze decay constants, isotope ratios, and limitations like gas loss to interpret geologic timelines.

Introduce radioanalysis by outlining activation and radiometric methods, explain inherent radioactivity and natural isotopes, and discuss measurement principles, equilibrium, and trace detection using potassium, uranium, and thorium.

Neutron activation analysis activates nuclei via nuclear reactions, governed by cross section and flux density, using reactor neutrons or neutron generators. Gamma rays measured by a spectrometer quantify the activation.

Explore activation by charged particles and photons as alternatives to neutron activation analysis, covering energy thresholds, cross sections, irradiation, surface analysis, and detection limits.

Explore activation analysis, a blank-free, highly sensitive method for determining many trace elements in materials and samples, using gamma spectroscopy and irradiation timing.

Explore the isotope dilution analysis, using isotope ratios and specific activities with radio tracers to determine elements without full quantitative separation, including carrier-free forms.

Explore other analytical applications of radio tracer techniques, including backscatter beta radiation, gamma and x-ray methods, and neutron activation, to reveal analytical errors and determine element composition.