Terbium nuclear properties

As was the case for the previously discovered transuranium elements, element 97 was first produced via a nuclear bombardment reaction. In December 1949 ion-exchange separation of the products formed by the bombardment of Am with accelerated alpha particles provided a new electron-capture activity eluting just ahead of curium [1,2]. This activity was assigned to an isotope (mass number 243) of element 97. The new element was named berkelium after Berkeley, California, the city of its discovery, in a parallel manner to the naming of its lanthanide analog, terbium, after Ytterby, Sweden. The initial investigations of the chemical properties of berkelium were limited to tracer experiments (ion exchange and co-precipitation), but these were sufficient to establish the stability of Bk(iii) and the accessibility of Bk(iv) in aqueous solution and to estimate the electrochemical potential of the Bk(iv)/Bk(iii) couple [2,3]. 

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