Isotopes of plutonium

Plutonium (₉₄Pu) is an artificial element, except for trace quantities resulting from neutron capture by uranium, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all artificial elements, it has no stable isotopes. It was synthesized long before being found in nature, the first isotope synthesized being plutonium-238 in 1940. Twenty plutonium radioisotopes have been characterized. The most stable are plutonium-244 with a half-life of 80.8 million years; plutonium-242 with a half-life of 373,300 years; and plutonium-239 with a half-life of 24,110 years; and plutonium-240 with a half-life of 6,560 years. This element also has eight meta states; all have half-lives of less than one second.

Isotopes of plutonium range in atomic weight from 228.0387 u (²²⁸Pu) to 247.074 u (²⁴⁷Pu). The primary decay modes before the most stable isotope, ²⁴⁴Pu, are spontaneous fission and alpha decay; the primary mode after is beta emission. The primary decay products before ²⁴⁴Pu are isotopes of uranium and neptunium (not considering fission products), and the primary decay products after are isotopes of americium.