Chemistry J.J. Thomson of Cambridge University discovered the electron and soon after the French scientist Becquerel as well as the couple Pierre and Marie Curie investigated the phenomenon of radioactivity. In a series of pioneering scattering experiments Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester discovered the internal structure of the atom and the existence of the proton, classified and explained the different types of radioactivity and successfully transmuted the first element by bombarding nitrogen with alpha particles. His work on atomic structure was improved on by his students, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and Henry Moseley. The electronic theory of chemical
Nuclear pumped laser Nuclear pumped laser A nuclear pumped laser is a laser pumped with the energy of fission fragments. The lasing medium is enclosed in a tube lined with uranium-235 and subjected to high neutron flux in a nuclear reactor core. The fission fragments of the uranium create excited plasma with inverse population of energy levels, which then lases. Other methods, e.g. the He-Ar laser, can use the He(n,p)H reaction, the transmutation of helium-3 in a neutron flux, as the energy source, or employing the energy of the alpha particles. This technology may achieve high excitation rates with small laser volumes. Some