Los Alamos National Laboratory
Delivering science and technology to protect our nation and promote world stability
Aging Plutonium
A Los Alamos physicist describes a career solving scientific mysteries for national security.
December 1, 2016
“We are now sitting on two breakthrough theories, one of which could finally explain plutonium’s electronic structure.”
“We have a deep obligation to understand how plutonium alloys age as they accumulate damage from their own radioactivity,” says Los Alamos physicist Albert Migliori. “If we don’t, how can we be confident in the effectiveness of our weapons? We have to use all relevant science to understand everything that affects nuclear performance. The fact that plutonium science turns out to be so enthralling in its own right is a tremendous bonus.”