We had every expectation to stop adding items to this page. Nature has gifted us with a buffet listing 92 ingredients. Over the last 100 years lab-coated nuclear physicists have added another couple dozen entries to that list, none of which are permanent. The synthetic atoms after uranium decay from their obesity. The artificial creation of atomic numbers 93 and beyond are relegated to roughly three categories: nuclear energy, weapons of mass destruction and the pursuit of higher knowledge of theoretical physics.

Americium is for the average person on the street the singular example of a trans-uranic element that is accessible in any sense of the word. Ionizing smoke detectors have an infinitessimal smidge of this radioactive concoction at the heart of their sensors and access to these components represent the one and only collectible available to ordinary people. Well, to be sure, there is a plutonium-laced counterpart in Russia which may or may not be still in production but it is at any rate not an off the shelf item that is readily available. In any case, atomic number 95 has been understood to be the absolute wall past which nothing is available to John Q Public in even the most ephemeral forms.

Curium is the 96th heaviest atom. Whatever small amount may have been produced naturally during the Big Bang, and perhaps more recent supernovae, have long decayed into simpler atoms. Today it can be created in nuclear laboratories with relative ease but, more often, when there is a need for it it’s simply recovered from nuclear waste. Many will find it surprising to know that you can buy it online relatively cheaply. Well, “you” being a shopper with the right credentials working in the right type of facility for a very specific project but yeah still… it’s odd that something this exotic can be offered on a page with a buy button!

So how does that explain the presence of this here block labeled with the bold Cm? The recipe for making curium is not that difficult. Crudely, you start with americium and set it up as a target against which you have a source of neutrons then let ‘er rip. Leave it well enough alone and after a few months a small portion of that americium has turned to curium. A shower of neutrons traveling close to the speed of light go through anything much as wind through a screen. Occasionally, one of those neutrons has the bad luck of smacking dead center into an atom. If that atom happens to be americium though the collision doesn’t result in a tiny little explosion of subatomic particles. Instead, the atom will grab it and welcome it into the family. A baby curium has been brought to the universe!

The rest is straightforward chemistry. The sample is separated from the “bulk” sample of americium through a number of steps and combined with a carrier the last step of which leaves a tiny amount of curium phosphate. How much is there, milligrams? No, not milligrams. Not even close. We’re in a realm in which even the most sensitive scales are useless. We resort instead to calculations of activity. The samples are computed to have three different isotopes yielding some Cm-242 (~0.34 nCi), Cm-243 (10 fCi) and Cm-244 (0.7 pCi). The results are confirmed via gamma spectroscopy.

Not for sale