Experimental study of photon induced gamma emission of hafnium-178(m2) by nuclear spectroscopy methods

The induced release of the energy stored in nuclear isomers in the form of an incoherent gamma burst is of great scientific and technological importance. Powerful sources of induced gamma-ray radiation could be obtained, which would be an intermediary step to the development of a gamma-ray laser. High-energy nuclear isomers with very long lifetimes of the order of years and higher can serve as good active media. For instance, a macroscopic sample of 178Hfm2 isomer stores about 1 GJ/g as excitation energy of the isomeric state. Photonuclear reactions induced by real or virtual photons are the most promising mechanisms to release the energy stored by 178Hfm2 nuclei. The isomeric nucleus is excited to an intermediate level from which cascade to the ground state emitting gamma-photons. The nuclear level density approaches one per keV at those excitation energies. Experimental investigations by nuclear spectroscopy methods conducted in this work revealed that the decay of 178Hfm2 is accelerated when the energies of the incident photons were tuned at about 20,825 keV, 11.15 keV or near the L3 photoionization threshold of atomic hafnium at 9561 keV. In the first case, the presumed mechanism was the direct photoexcitation of the m2 isomeric nucleus to a trigger level at about 2466.9 keV. There was a strong decay branch from this trigger level to the 11- level of the 8 - band that caused the accelerated emission of gamma photons from many of the transitions detected in the unperturbed spontaneous decay. In the second case, a trigger level at about 2457.2 keV, that meant 11.15 keV above the 16+ isomeric level, was mediating the energy release. The direct transition from this level to ground state was observed. Other branches of its decay enhanced the gamma-emission of the ground state band (GSB) members. In the third case, complex electron bridging mechanisms were implied when incident X-ray photons were tuned at energies near the L3 photoionization threshold. Those phenomena have been largely termed Nuclear-XAFS effects. They could induce a fast release of the energy stored by the isomer. The induced deexcitation cascade was by-passing the 8- band and included the 130.2 keV and 642.5 keV transitions, non-members of the spontaneous decay. At about 9567 eV, a sharp peak of the excitation function of the induced gammas indicated a nuclear photoexcitation of another trigger level. The results of this research offer a much deeper understanding of the processes governing the induced gamma emission by soft x-ray photons of 178Hfm2 and bring a step forward to the development of a new generation of energy storage devices at the nuclear scale with controlled release of stored energy.