Nihonium - 113Nh: historical information
On 12 August 2013 experiments involving zinc ions travelling at 10% of the speed of light colliding with a thin bismuth layer apparently produced a very heavy ion followed by a chain of six consecutive alpha decays identified as products of an isotope of element 113 278Nh - see new evidence for elements 113.
Experimental results reported in 2004 involving the bombardment of americium-243 with calcium-48 ions are consistent with the formation in the laboratory of a few atoms of elements 113 and 115. In experiments conducted at the JINR U400 cyclotron with the Dubna gas-filled separator between July 14 and Aug. 10, 2003, atomic decay patterns were observed said to confirm the existence of element 115 and element 113. In these decay chains, element 113 is produced via the α-decay of element 115.
The results are published in the 1 February 2004 issue of Physical Review C: "Experiments on the synthesis of element 115 in the reaction 243Am(48Ca,xn)291x115", Yu. Ts. Oganessian, V. K. Utyonkoy, Yu. V. Lobanov, F. Sh. Abdullin, A. N. Polyakov, I. V. Shirokovsky, Yu. S. Tsyganov, G. G. Gulbekian, S. L. Bogomolov, A. N. Mezentsev, S. Iliev, V. G. Subbotin, A. M. Sukhov, A. A. Voinov, G. V. Buklanov, K. Subotic, V. I. Zagrebaev, M. G. Itkis, J. B. Patin, K. J. Moody, J. F. Wild, M. A. Stoyer, N. J. Stoyer, D. A. Shaughnessy, J. M. Kenneally, and R. W. Lougheed, Phys. Rev. C, 2004, 69, 021601(R).