Atomic Nucleus

• The atomic nucleus is the small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom, discovered in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford based on the 1909 Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment.

Atomic Number

• The atomic number or proton number of a chemical element is the number of protons found in the nucleus of every atom of that element. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element. It is identical to the charge number of the nucleus.

Isotope

• Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element which differ in neutron number, and consequently in nucleon number. All isotopes of a given element have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons in each atom.

Mass Number

• The mass number, also called atomic mass number or nucleon number, is the total number of protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus. It is approximately equal to the atomic mass of the atom expressed in atomic mass units.

Atomic Weight

• The atomic weight is the number of grams in 1 mol of an element at natural abundance

Binding Energy

• Binding energy is the minimum energy required to disassemble a system of particles into separate parts. This energy is equal to the mass defect minus the amount of energy, or mass, that is released when a bound system is created, and is what keeps the system together.

Radioactivity

• Radioactivity refers to the particles which are emitted from nuclei as a result of nuclear instability. Because the nucleus experiences the intense conflict between the two strongest forces in nature, it should not be surprising that there are many nuclear isotopes which are unstable and emit some kind of radiation.

Radioactive Decay

• It is a process when an unstable nucleus emits particle.
• Radioactive decay is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation, such as an alpha particle, beta particle with neutrino or only a neutrino in the case of electron capture, or a gamma ray or electron in the case of internal conversion.

Half life

• The half-life of a radioactive substance is a characteristic constant. It measures the time it takes for a given amount of the substance to become reduced by half as a consequence of decay, and therefore, the emission of radiation.
• It is the time reach half of the original radioactive material.

Mass Spectrometry

• Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique that measures the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are typically presented as a mass spectrum, a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio.