Discovery of Nuclides Project

At the present time, more than 3,300 nuclides have been discovered in over 1,500 publications. About 4,000 different researchers were involved in these discoveries.

It is interesting to list who discovered isotopes and where the discoveries took place. Below are links to tables sorted by (first/co)authors, laboratories, countries, and journals.

Researchers can also search for the isotopes discovered by individual authors, and at different labs and in different countries here.

Note: FRIB attempted to account for the different use of initials and name changes. However, this might not always be correct. Authors are encouraged to check the abstracts for the individual isotopes linked from the Isotope abstracts page. Please send any corrections to nuclides@frib.msu.edu.

Search by element, author, laboratory, and more.

View abstracts

View the chart of nuclides on NuDat, from the National Nuclear Data Center.

View nuclide chart
Back to program page

Learn about the most recent isotope discoveries.

Latest discoveries

View tables of the top authors, laboratories, countries, and journals.

View rankings

Learn about the guidelines used to determine the claim of discovery of a nuclide.

View discovery criteria

Browse a list of publications related to the Discovery of Nuclides Project.

View publications

The original papers describing the discovery of the isotopes of all elements were published over several years in the journal Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables (ADNDT).

View original discovery papers

Learn more about how this work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics.

View acknowledgments

Michigan State University (MSU) operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE SC), with financial support from and furthering the mission of the DOE‑SC Office of Nuclear Physics. FRIB is registered to ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001, and ISO 45001.

Michigan State University U.S. Department of Energy