Now that we've discussed what ionizing radiation is

and isn't, let's talk about the different types

of ionizing radiation you might encounter.

Because there are only a few that you really

have to know about, and I'm going to put them
in terms of different nuclear decay
equations so that you can see where they come from
and how they change the balance of nuclear reactions.
The first one I'll mentioned is alpha decay.
In alpha decay, you actually generate a helium nucleus.
In fact, it's a plus-2 charged bare helium nucleus
containing two protons and four nucleons,
which means two neutrons.
There is what's known as beta decay, which is just
another word for an electron, but specifically
from the nucleus.

All betas are electrons, but not all electrons are betas.
The ones that come from the nucleus are known as betas.
You may also have a positron, sometimes referred
to as a beta-plus.
In this case, this is the anti-matter component
of an electron, and one of the common sources of positrons
is actually the isotope potassium-40.
You may also have gamma decay, which
is just a very high-energy photon, as we've discussed
in some of the previous ones.
So now let's look at the different nuclear reactions
in which these are released.
So one good alpha reaction is the alpha decay
of Americium-241, which decays into Neptunium-237
plus an alpha particle.
So you can either write alpha, or you can write 4-2 helium.
Either way, it gets the point across.
It's alpha decay.
And we'll be revisiting this particular reaction
a few times later in this module, and in the next,
we'll be studying the energetics of how much energy
goes into the alpha, how much goes into Neptunium.
But all you need to know now is this
is an example of alpha decay.
Its Q value, or the amount of matter turned into energy
in this case, is 5.638 MEV.
That's quite a lot of energy, and alpha particles typically
come off with energies ranging from 2-8 MEV,
depending on the type of decay equation.

Let's talk about beta decay next.

So if we take a typical beta decay equation--
let's say strontium-90.
This isotope was actually used in unmanned lighthouses
because you were able to produce a fair bit of heat
from the beta decay of strontium-90,
and using a thermoelectric generator,
convert a little bit of it to electric power.
So you could have a light in an unmanned remote outpost not
connected to the grid, which is awfully convenient.
And strontium-90 actually becomes yttrium-90.
Notice that its proton number goes up,
plus a beta, plus an elusive little particle
known as the anti-neutrino.

These are almost massless, chargeless,

difficult-to-detect particles that carry off some
of the energy of beta decay.
So notice here that the number of protons
has actually gone up because what's happening on the inside
during beta decay is one of these neutrons is
kind of turning into a proton plus an electron, otherwise
known as a beta, and this anti-neutrino.
So the proton number actually goes up.
I'll just label these.

Let's talk about gamma decay.

This is a fairly easy one because the number
of protons and the number of neutrons doesn't change.
All that happens is the nucleus loses a little bit of energy.
Now, gamma decay never happens on its own.
You'll never have a stable nucleus just
sitting there and all of a sudden undergo gamma decay.
It's the result of the decay of an excited
state from something else.
So, for example, you may have molybdenum-99 decays
to technetium-99 metastable, which
then decays via gamma decay to plain old technetium-99
plus the gamma ray.
And so in this case, the molybdenum
would decay actually via beta decay,
like this mechanism up above, to a metastable
or an unusually long-lived excited
isotope of technetium-99.
It lasts about six hours or so, and then it
gives off a gamma ray and becomes ground state
technetium.
Finally, let's talk about things that emit neutrons.
I'm not going to call this neutron decay,
but the process that does happen spontaneously
is called spontaneous fission, where
very heavy isotopes, things like Americium, plutonium,
or the one I'll show you now, Californium-252,
can just spontaneously fizz or split apart
into two fission products.
I'll call them FP1, FP2, and somewhere between 2-4 neutrons.
And this process does happen spontaneously,
though it's very unlikely.
The reason I picked Californium-252--
I forgot to write the Californium there--
is it has a spontaneous fission probability of about 3%,
which is exceedingly high.
And this is why it's actually used as a kickstarter source
to help jumpstart nuclear reactors.
We'll be revisiting a lot of these reactions
later on in modules 1.1 through 1.3,
where we'll talk about the energetics, decay
diagrams, activity, half-lives, decay constants, and uses
of many of these isotopes.