Radioluminescence luminosity over their working life. The latest generation of radioluminescent materials is based on tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life of 12.32 years that emits very low-energy beta radiation. It is used on wristwatch faces, gun sights, and emergency exit signs. The tritium gas is contained in a small glass tube, coated with a phosphor on the inside. Beta particles emitted by the tritium strike the phosphor coating and cause it to fluoresce, emitting light, usually yellow-green. Tritium is used because it is believed to pose a negligible threat to human health, in contrast to the previous radioluminescent
Isotope persisted down to the present because their rate of decay is so slow (e.g. uranium-238 and potassium-40). Post-primordial isotopes were created by cosmic ray bombardment as cosmogenic nuclides (e.g., tritium, carbon-14), or by the decay of a radioactive primordial isotope to a radioactive radiogenic nuclide daughter (e.g. uranium to radium). A few isotopes are naturally synthesized as nucleogenic nuclides, by some other natural nuclear reaction, such as when neutrons from natural nuclear fission are absorbed by another atom. As discussed above, only 80 elements have any stable isotopes, and 26 of these have only one stable isotope. Thus, about two-thirds