Feature Article: Superheavy Element Chemistry

Abstract

The discovery of new elements and their correct placement in the Periodic Table has originally been the domain of chemists. Indeed, the discovery of new elements up to mendelevium (Md, Z = 101) was accomplished by chemical means [1]. The decreasing production cross sections, that nowadays are of the order of one picobarn or even less for the heaviest known nuclei, and the rapidly diminishing half-lives made manual chemical investigations of elements beyond Z = 105 virtually impossible. Thus, the synthesis and identification of new elements has completely shifted to nuclear physics and led to the discovery of more than ten new elements.