Discovery criteria

The following guidelines were used to determine the claim of discovery of a nuclide:

• Clean identification, either by decay curves (half-lives) and relationships to other known isotopes, particle or γ-ray spectra, or unique mass and Z identification
• The discovery had to be reported in a refereed journal
• The submission date is adopted as the date of discovery
• In case two discovery articles were submitted on the same date, the article which was published first received the credit for the discovery
• If the half-life was used as identification it had to agree with the later established half-life within about a factor of two

In most cases, the discovery is easy to determine. However, there are many cases that are controversial for many different reasons. To help resolve the controversial cases or to question an assignment, please email nuclides@frib.msu.edu.

Rankings

At the present time, more than 3,300 nuclides have been discovered in over 1,500 publications. About 4,000 different researchers were involved in these discoveries.

It is interesting to list who discovered isotopes and where the discoveries took place. Below are links to tables sorted by (first/co)authors, laboratories, countries, and journals.

• Table of top 1,000 (co)authors
• Table of top 250 first authors
• Table of all laboratories where nuclides were discovered
• Table of all countries where nuclides were discovered
• Table of top 25 journals where the discovery of nuclides were published

Researchers can also search for the isotopes discovered by individual authors, and at different labs and in different countries here.

Note: FRIB attempted to account for the different use of initials and name changes. However, this might not always be correct. Authors are encouraged to check the abstracts for the individual isotopes linked from the Isotope abstracts page. Please send any corrections to nuclides@frib.msu.edu.

Downloads

The discovery of isotopes database is a json file and available to download here.

Comments and updates

If someone is aware of discoveries not yet listed or would like to comment on a specific assignment, please email nuclides@frib.msu.edu.

If you would like to receive notifications about new isotope discovery papers, please email nuclides@frib.msu.edu.