indium115

Indium-115 is a radioactive isotope of indium. It has a very long half-life, approximately 4.439 x 10^14 years, making it one of the longest-lived isotopes known. This extremely slow decay means that for practical purposes, indium-115 can be considered stable. Its natural abundance is about 95.7%.

The primary decay mode of indium-115 is beta decay, transforming into a stable isotope of tin, tin-115. This decay process releases a low-energy beta particle and an antineutrino. Due to its very low decay rate, the radioactivity of naturally occurring indium-115 is negligible.

Indium-115 has found applications in various scientific fields. Its long half-life and low-energy decay make it useful in certain types of radiation detectors, particularly for neutrino detection experiments. Researchers can exploit the unique properties of indium-115 to study fundamental physics. It is also used as a target material in some nuclear research applications.

In its natural state, indium is composed of two isotopes: the overwhelmingly abundant, long-lived indium-115, and the stable indium-113. The presence of indium-115 contributes to the overall very low specific activity of natural indium.