Laser Spectroscopy of the Heaviest Elements: One Atom at a Time

摘要

The periodic table of elements experienced one of its biggest upheavals with the manifestation of the actinide series and the discovery of the first man-made superheavy elements (SHEs) in the early 1960s. Since then a genuine rally toward the production of ever heavier elements has been initiated, fueled by the promise from nuclear models of enhanced nuclear stability of SHEs around atomic numbers Z = 114 ~ 126 and neutron number N = 184. The potential existence of long-lived SHEs inspired scientists to search for them in nature while awaiting discovery with contemporary element production techniques. To date, the periodic table ends at element 118, oganesson (Og) [1], which has been named only recently together with the elements 113 (nihonium, Nh), 115 (moscovium, Mc), and 117 (tennessine, Ts).