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Nature 445, 161-162 (11 January 2007) | doi:10.1038/445161a; Published online 10 January 2007

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Materials Science: Displaced by radiation

Rodney C. Ewing1

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The mineral zircon suffers more structural damage from the alpha-decay of plutonium present in its crystal than was thought. That could have a knock-on effect on strategies for managing nuclear waste.

On page 190 of this issue, Farnan, Cho and Weber1 describe how nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy can be used to assess the damage caused to a solid's structure by alpha-decays of an emitter incorporated into its crystal. The authors test their technique on the mineral zircon (ZrSiO4), and find that each alpha-decay event displaces significantly more atoms than simulations had predicted.

  1. Rodney C. Ewing is in the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1005, USA.
    Email: rodewing@umich.edu

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