Nuclear Reactions:
These are primarily meant to produce radioisotopes. A nuclear reaction is a process in which a target nucleus (A1 T) is bombarded with a nuclear particle called projectiles (b) such as neutron, photon, proton, α-particle or a heavy ion so that it is converted into same nucleus in excited state or a nucleus of another element (A2 P) and an emitted particle called ejectile (e). Interaction of nuclear particle may result into the scattering of the projectile, excitation of the target nucleus, or excitation followed by nuclear transformation of the target to another nuclide by gain or loss of subatomic particle. Typically a nuclear reaction may be represented as
You may have noticed that during early day's only α-particles i.e. helium nuclei were used for producing artificial radioactivity. This is because during that period only bombarding particles were available from the decay of natural decay series.
where bombarding particle, b and emitted particle, e has atomic and mass numbers, Z'2 , A'2 respectively. According to Bethe's notation, the nuclear reaction may be represented as . In general, proton number, Z is omitted in the equation but the values of Z and A both are conserved. While,
Z1 +Z '1 =Z2 + Z' 2 and A1 + A'1 = A2 + A'2