Beta radiation is the emission of an electron from the nucleus of a radioactive isotope. This electron comes from one of the neutrons in an unstable nucleus. The weak nuclear force is involved, and the neutron is converted into a proton when the beta...

Henri Becquerel discovered the ability of certain materials to give off radiation spontaneously ( radioactivity) in 1896. The logical follow-up question to this discovery was what the nature of that radiation was. At first, Becquerel thought the...

An electron emitted by the nucleus of a radioactive atom. The beta particle is produced when a neutron within the nucleus decays into a proton and an electron. Beta particles have greater penetrating power than alpha particles but less than x-ray or...

A radioactive particle equivalent to an electron. It has a mass 1/1836 that of a PROTON and carries a negative charge. Some beta particles carry a positive charge; if so, they are known as positrons. See also: ALPHA PARTICLE; GAMMA RADIATION;...

Beta particles are high-energy, high-speed electrons or positrons emitted by certain types of radioactive nuclei such as potassium-40. The beta particles emitted are a form of ionizing radiation also known as beta rays. The production of beta particles...

A model was developed to describe the diffusional growth of a size distribution of alpha particles in Ti-6Al-4V during cooldown following alpha/beta solution treatment. Model results for initial microstructures with the same initial volume fraction of alpha but comprising either a distribution of particle...

Many radioactive atoms decay by emitting beta particles, or electrons, thereby transforming themselves into new elements. For each atomic isotope, these beta particles emerge from nuclei with a characteristic distribution, or spectrum, of energies. Theorist Steven E. Koonin of the California Institute of...