Chart of the Nuclides

The Chart of the Nuclides, like the Periodic Table, is a convenient format for presenting a large amount of scientific information in an organized manner.

A tabulated chart called the Chart of the Nuclides lists the stable and unstable nuclides in addition to pertinent information about each one. Figure 3 shows a small portion of a typical chart. This chart plots a box for each individual nuclide, with the number of protons (Z) on the vertical axis and the number of neutrons (N = A - Z) on the horizontal axis.

The completely gray squares indicate stable isotopes. Those in white squares are artificially radioactive, meaning that they are produced by artificial techniques and do not occur naturally. By consulting a complete chart, other types of isotopes can be found, such as naturally occurring radioactive types (but none are found in the region of the chart that is illustrated in Figure 3).

Located in the box on the far left of each horizontal row is general information about the element. The box contains the chemical symbol of the element in addition to the average atomic weight of the naturally occurring substance and the average thermal neutron absorption cross section, which will be discussed in a later module. The known isotopes (elements with the same atomic number Z but different mass number A) of each element are listed to the right.

For the stable isotopes, in addition to the symbol and the atomic mass number, the number percentage of each isotope in the naturally occurring element is listed, as well as the thermal neutron activation cross section and the mass in atomic mass units (amu). A typical block for a stable nuclide from the Chart of the Nuclides is shown in Figure 4.

For unstable isotopes the additional information includes the half life, the mode of decay (for example, β, α), the total disintegration energy in MeV (million electron volts), and the mass in amu when available. A typical block for an unstable nuclide from the Chart of the Nuclides is shown in Figure 5.

2.2. Fill in the gaps (1-6) with the words from the box below the text. There is one extra word which you don’t need to use.

Figure 6 shows the distribution of the stable nuclides plotted on the same 1__________ as the Chart of the Nuclides. As the 2__________ become higher, the ratio of neutrons to protons in the nucleus becomes larger. For helium-4 (2 protons and 2 neutrons) and oxygen-16 (8 protons and 8 neutrons) this ratio is unity. For indium-115 (49 protons and 66 neutrons) the ratio of neutrons to protons has increased to 1.35, and for uranium-238 (92 protons and 146 neutrons) the neutron-to-proton ratio is 1.59.

If a heavy nucleus were to split into two fragments, each fragment would form a nucleus that would have approximately the same 3__________ ratio as the heavy nucleus. This high neutron-to-proton ratio places the fragments below and to the right of the 4__________ displayed by Figure 6. The instability caused by this 5__________ of neutrons is generally rectified by successive beta emissions, each of which converts a neutron to a 6__________ and moves the nucleus toward a more stable neutron-to-proton ratio.