Nuclear reaction Common light particles are often abbreviated in this shorthand, typically p for proton, n for neutron, d for deuteron, α representing an alpha particle or helium-4, β for beta particle or electron, γ for gamma photon, etc. The reaction above would be written as Li-6(d,α)α. In 1919, Ernest Rutherford was able to accomplish transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen at the University of Manchester, using alpha particles directed at nitrogen N + α → O + p. This was the first observation of an induced nuclear reaction, that is, a reaction in which particles from one decay are used to transform
Alpha decay done against electromagnetic repulsion to bring an alpha particle from infinity to a point near the nucleus just outside the range of the nuclear force's influence. An alpha particle can be thought of as being inside a potential barrier whose walls are 25 MeV. However, decay alpha particles only have kinetic energies of 4 MeV to about 9 MeV, far less than the energy needed to escape. Quantum mechanics, however, provides a ready explanation, via the mechanism of quantum tunnelling. The quantum tunnelling theory of alpha decay, independently developed by George Gamow and Ronald Wilfred Gurney and Edward Condon in