Portal:Nuclear technology

The Nuclear Technology Portal

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Introduction

This symbol of radioactivity is internationally recognized.

Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors and gun sights. (Full article...)
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Reactors producing controlled fusion power have been operated since 1958 but have yet to generate net power and are not expected to be commercially available in the near future. (Full article...)
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. Nine sovereign states are believed to possess nuclear weapons as of 2026^[update]: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various nuclear technology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The two basic fission weapon designs (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 2The basics of the Teller–Ulam design for a hydrogen bomb: a fission bomb uses radiation to compress and heat a separate section of fusion fuel. (from Nuclear weapon)
$Image 3Reactor decay heat as a fraction of full power after the reactor shutdown, using two different correlations. To remove the decay heat, reactors need cooling after the shutdown of the fission reactions. A loss of the ability to remove decay heat caused the Fukushima accident. (from Nuclear power)$
Image 3Reactor decay heat as a fraction of full power after the reactor shutdown, using two different correlations. To remove the decay heat, reactors need cooling after the shutdown of the fission reactions. A loss of the ability to remove decay heat caused the Fukushima accident. (from Nuclear power)
Image 4The Ikata Nuclear Power Plant, a pressurized water reactor that cools by using a secondary coolant heat exchanger with a large body of water, an alternative cooling approach to large cooling towers (from Nuclear power)
Image 5Death rates per unit of electricity production for different energy sources (from Nuclear power)
Image 6A demilitarized, commercial launch of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces R-36 ICBM; also known by the NATO reporting name: SS-18 Satan. Upon its first fielding in the late 1960s, the SS-18 remains the single highest throw weight missile delivery system ever built. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 7The now decommissioned United States' Peacekeeper missile was an ICBM developed to replace the Minuteman missile in the late 1980s. Each missile, like the heavier lift Russian SS-18 Satan, could contain up to ten nuclear warheads (shown in red), each of which could be aimed at a different target. A factor in the development of MIRVs was to make complete missile defense difficult for an enemy country. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 8The number of nuclear warheads by country in 2024, based on an estimation by the Federation of American Scientists (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 9In thermal nuclear reactors (LWRs in specific), the coolant acts as a moderator that must slow the neutrons before they can be efficiently absorbed by the fuel. (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 10Typical composition of uranium dioxide fuel before and after approximately three years in the once-through nuclear fuel cycle of a LWR (from Nuclear power)
Image 11The Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant in Switzerland (from Nuclear power)
Image 12The Superphénix, closed in 1998, was one of the few FBRs (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 13The CANDU Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 14Treatment of the interior part of a VVER-1000 reactor frame at Atommash (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 15Following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident since 1986, 50,000 households were displaced after radiation leaked into the air, soil and sea. Radiation checks led to bans of some shipments of vegetables and fish. (from Nuclear power)
Image 16The mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945 rose over 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) above the bomb's hypocenter, which killed an estimated 39,000 people. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 17Nuclear waste flasks generated by the United States during the Cold War are stored underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The facility is seen as a potential demonstration for storing spent fuel from civilian reactors. (from Nuclear power)
Image 18UN vote on adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on July 7, 2017
  Yes

  No
  Did not vote
(from Nuclear weapon)
Image 19Some of the Chicago Pile Team, including Enrico Fermi (leftmost man front row) and Leó Szilárd (rightmost man middle row) (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 20Life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of electricity supply technologies, median values calculated by IPCC (from Nuclear power)
Image 21Three of the reactors at Fukushima I overheated, causing the coolant water to dissociate and led to the hydrogen explosions. This along with fuel meltdowns released large amounts of radioactive material into the air. (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 22This view of downtown Las Vegas shows a mushroom cloud in the background. Scenes such as this were typical during the 1950s. From 1951 to 1962 the government conducted 100 atmospheric tests at the nearby Nevada Test Site. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 23Induced fission reaction. A neutron is absorbed by a uranium-235 nucleus, turning it briefly into an excited uranium-236 nucleus, with the excitation energy provided by the kinetic energy of the neutron plus the forces that bind the neutron. The uranium-236, in turn, splits into fast-moving lighter elements (fission products) and releases several free neutrons, one or more "prompt gamma rays" (not shown) and a (proportionally) large amount of kinetic energy. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 24Ballistic missile submarines have been of great strategic importance for the United States, Russia, and other nuclear powers since they entered service in the Cold War, as they can hide from reconnaissance satellites and fire their nuclear weapons with virtual impunity. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 25Diablo Canyon – a PWR (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 26Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn in their laboratory (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 27Scaled-down model of TOPAZ nuclear reactor (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 28A comparison of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) over time for nuclear power and other sources. While wind turbines and solar panels can be mass-produced and thus enjoy learning curve effects, nuclear are almost always one-of-a-kind projects due to the limited number of reactors being built. The source of this chart, Our World in Data notes that the costs presented here is the global average, and these costs were driven up by 2 projects in the United States. The organization recognises that the median cost of the most exported and produced nuclear energy facility in the 2010s the South Korean APR1400, remained "constant", including in export. (from Nuclear power)
Image 29Protest in Bonn against the nuclear arms race between the US/NATO and the Warsaw Pact, 1981 (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 30A photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi's back injuries taken in January 1946 by a US Marine photographer (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 31Nuclear fuel assemblies being inspected before entering a pressurized water reactor in the United States (from Nuclear power)
Image 32The town of Pripyat abandoned since 1986, with the Chernobyl plant and the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement arch in the distance (from Nuclear power)
Image 33More than 2,000 nuclear explosions have been conducted in more than a dozen different sites around the world. Red Russia/Soviet Union, blue France, light blue United States, violet Britain, yellow China, orange India, brown Pakistan, green North Korea and light green (territories exposed to nuclear bombs). The black dot indicates the location of the Vela incident. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 34Drawing of the first artificial reactor, Chicago Pile-1 (from Nuclear fission)
Image 35The first light bulbs ever lit by electricity generated by nuclear power at EBR-1 at Argonne National Laboratory-West (now the Idaho National Laboratory), December 20, 1951. (from Nuclear power)
Image 36A visual representation of an induced nuclear fission event where a slow-moving neutron is absorbed by the nucleus of a uranium-235 atom, which fissions into two fast-moving lighter elements (fission products) and additional neutrons. Most of the energy released is in the form of the kinetic velocities of the fission products and the neutrons. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 37Dry cask storage vessels storing spent nuclear fuel assemblies (from Nuclear power)
Image 38Demonstration against nuclear testing in Lyon, France, in the 1980s (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 39Proportions of the isotopes uranium-238 (blue) and uranium-235 (red) found in natural uranium and in enriched uranium for different applications. Light water reactors use 3–5% enriched uranium, while CANDU reactors work with natural uranium. (from Nuclear power)
Image 40The nuclear fuel cycle begins when uranium is mined, enriched, and manufactured into nuclear fuel (1), which is delivered to a nuclear power plant. After use, the spent fuel is delivered to a reprocessing plant (2) or to a final repository (3). In nuclear reprocessing, 95% of spent fuel can potentially be recycled to be returned to use in a power plant (4). (from Nuclear power)
Image 41The launching ceremony of USS Nautilus January 1954. In 1958 it would become the first vessel to reach the North Pole. (from Nuclear power)
Image 42Olkiluoto 3 under construction in 2009. It was the first EPR, a modernized PWR design, to start construction. (from Nuclear power)
Image 43Animation of a Coulomb explosion in the case of a cluster of positively charged nuclei, akin to a cluster of fission fragments. Hue level of color is proportional to (larger) nuclei charge. Electrons (smaller) on this time-scale are seen only stroboscopically and the hue level is their kinetic energy. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 44The Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant – a RBMK type (closed 2009) (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 45The US has been counting on private industry to lead in fusion power, while more recently China's government has made fusion a national priority. In 2025, $2.1 billion was poured into a single Chinese state-owned fusion company, an amount two and a half times the U.S. Energy Department's annual fusion budget. (from Nuclear power)
Image 46The multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG), used in several space missions such as the Curiosity Mars rover (from Nuclear power)
Image 47An example of an induced nuclear fission event. A neutron is absorbed by the nucleus of a uranium-235 atom, which in turn splits into fast-moving lighter elements (fission products) and free neutrons. Though both reactors and nuclear weapons rely on nuclear chain reactions, the rate of reactions in a reactor is much slower than in a bomb. (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 48The cooling towers of the Philippsburg Nuclear Power Plant in Germany (from Nuclear fission)
Image 49The Trinity test of the Manhattan Project was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, which led J. Robert Oppenheimer to recall verses from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one" ... "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds". (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 50Edward Teller, often referred to as the "father of the hydrogen bomb" (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 51The Chicago Pile, the first artificial nuclear reactor, built in secrecy at the University of Chicago in 1942 during World War II as part of the US's Manhattan Project (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 52Overhead view of the core of the RA-3 Research and Production Reactor (CNEA, Argentina) (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 53Soviet OTR-21 Tochka missile. Capable of firing a 100-kiloton nuclear warhead a distance of 185 km (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 54Anti-nuclear weapons protest march in Oxford, 1980 (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 55A schematic nuclear fission chain reaction. 1. A uranium-235 atom absorbs a neutron and fissions into two new atoms (fission fragments), releasing three new neutrons and some binding energy. 2. One of those neutrons is absorbed by an atom of uranium-238 and does not continue the reaction. Another neutron is simply lost and does not collide with anything, also not continuing the reaction. However, the one neutron does collide with an atom of uranium-235, which then fissions and releases two neutrons and some binding energy. 3. Both of those neutrons collide with uranium-235 atoms, each of which fissions and releases between one and three neutrons, which can then continue the reaction. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 56The nuclear fission display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The table and instruments are originals, but would not have been together in the same room. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 57The map shows the commercial nuclear power plants in the world. Research reactors are not considered nuclear power plants.
  Operating reactors, building new reactors

  Operating reactors, planning new build

  No reactors, building new reactors

  No reactors, new in planning

  Operating reactors, stable

  Operating reactors, decided on phase-out

  Civil nuclear power is illegal

  No reactors
(from Nuclear power)
Image 58Ukrainian workers use equipment provided by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency to dismantle a Soviet-era missile silo. After the end of the Cold War, Ukraine and the other non-Russian, post-Soviet republics relinquished Soviet nuclear stockpiles to Russia. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 59Most waste packaging, small-scale experimental fuel recycling chemistry and radiopharmaceutical refinement is conducted within remote-handled hot cells. (from Nuclear power)
Image 60The Magnox Sizewell A nuclear power station (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 61Primary coolant system showing reactor pressure vessel (red), steam generators (purple), pressurizer (blue), and pumps (green) in the three coolant loop Hualong One pressurized water reactor design (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 62Activity of spent UOx fuel in comparison to the activity of natural uranium ore over time (from Nuclear power)
Image 63The Torness nuclear power station – an AGR (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 64The "curve of binding energy": A graph of binding energy per nucleon of common isotopes. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 65The USSR and United States nuclear weapon stockpiles throughout the Cold War until 2015, with a precipitous drop in total numbers following the end of the Cold War in 1991. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 66The first nuclear weapons were gravity bombs, such as the "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. They were large and could only be delivered by heavy bomber aircraft (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 67Montage of an inert test of a United States Trident SLBM (submarine launched ballistic missile), from submerged to the terminal, or re-entry phase, of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 68NC State's PULSTAR Reactor is a 1 MW pool-type research reactor with 4% enriched, pin-type fuel consisting of UO₂ pellets in zircaloy cladding (from Nuclear reactor)
Image 69The Calder Hall nuclear power station in the United Kingdom, the world's first commercial nuclear power station (from Nuclear power)
Image 70Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in 1912 (from Nuclear fission)
Image 71Fission product yields by mass for thermal neutron fission of uranium-235, plutonium-239, a combination of the two typical of current nuclear power reactors, and uranium-233, used in the thorium cycle (from Nuclear fission)
Image 72The stages of binary fission in a liquid drop model. Energy input deforms the nucleus into a fat "cigar" shape, then a "peanut" shape, followed by binary fission as the two lobes exceed the short-range nuclear force attraction distance, and are then pushed apart and away by their electrical charge. In the liquid drop model, the two fission fragments are predicted to be the same size. The nuclear shell model allows for them to differ in size, as usually experimentally observed. (from Nuclear fission)
Image 73Mushroom cloud from the explosion of Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear weapon detonated by the US, in 1954 (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 74A Minuteman III ICBM test launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, United States. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. (from Nuclear weapon)
Image 75Anti-nuclear protest near nuclear waste disposal centre at Gorleben in northern Germany (from Nuclear power)
Image 76Schematic of the ITER tokamak under construction in France (from Nuclear power)

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ZETA, short for Zero Energy Thermonuclear Assembly, was a major experiment in the early history of fusion power research. Based on the pinch plasma confinement technique, and built at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in the United Kingdom, ZETA was larger and more powerful than any fusion machine in the world at that time. Its goal was to produce large numbers of fusion reactions, although it was not large enough to produce net energy.

ZETA went into operation in August 1957 and by the end of the month it was giving off bursts of about a million neutrons per pulse. Measurements suggested the fuel was reaching between 1 and 5 million kelvins, a temperature that would produce nuclear fusion reactions, explaining the quantities of neutrons being seen. Early results were leaked to the press in September 1957, and the following January an extensive review was released. Front-page articles in newspapers around the world announced it as a breakthrough towards unlimited energy, a scientific advance for Britain greater than the recently launched Sputnik had been for the Soviet Union.

U.S. and Soviet experiments had also given off similar neutron bursts at temperatures that were not high enough for fusion. This led Lyman Spitzer to express his scepticism of the results, but his comments were dismissed by UK observers as jingoism. Further experiments on ZETA showed that the original temperature measurements were misleading; the bulk temperature was too low for fusion reactions to create the number of neutrons being seen. The claim that ZETA had produced fusion had to be publicly withdrawn, an embarrassing event that cast a chill over the entire fusion establishment. The neutrons were later explained as being the product of instabilities in the fuel. These instabilities appeared inherent to any similar design, and work on the basic pinch concept as a road to fusion power ended by 1961.

Despite ZETA's failure to achieve fusion, the device went on to have a long experimental lifetime and produced numerous important advances in the field. In one line of development, the use of lasers to more accurately measure the temperature was tested on ZETA, and was later used to confirm the results of the Soviet tokamak approach. In another, while examining ZETA test runs it was noticed that the plasma self-stabilised after the power was turned off. This has led to the modern reversed field pinch concept. More generally, studies of the instabilities in ZETA have led to several important theoretical advances that form the basis of modern plasma theory. (Full article...)

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Credit: Nick-D

Arming plugs for a 'Little Boy' type atomic bomb on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The plugs were found in the navigator's compartment in the B-29 bomber Enola Gay. The green plug may have been used in the bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima. The plug on the right is probably a spare.

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Did you know?

... that the Manhattan Project feed materials program used uranium ore from a mine in Canada near the Arctic Circle?
... that the medieval Castle Knob was the site of a Cold War nuclear monitoring station?
... that Trump wrote a letter to Ali Khamenei in an effort to initiate new nuclear negotiations with Iran?
... that 15,000 Ukrainians joined a Telegram channel for an orgy on a Kyiv hill in the event of a Russian nuclear strike?
... that the 1991 Andover tornado narrowly avoided hitting two warplanes equipped with nuclear warheads?
... that 1ES 1927+654, a galaxy in Draco, exhibited such extreme nuclear activity that it challenged conventional models of black-hole environments?

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Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. (August 27, 1915 – November 4, 2011) was an American physicist who was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method (see Ramsey interferometry), which had important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. A physics professor at Harvard University for most of his career, Ramsey also held several posts with such government and international agencies as NATO and the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Among his other accomplishments are helping to found the United States Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab. (Full article...)