Identification

Element: Californium (Cf)
Atomic number Z: 98
Mass number A: 254
State: Radioactive

Key quantities

Half-life: 60.5 d
Specific activity: 3.144e+14 Bq/g
Gamma constant Γ: —
A1 / A2 for transport (SSR-6, НП-053-16): 0.001 TBq / 0.001 TBq
D-value (НП-067-24): 0.0003 TBq

Decay modes

spontaneous fission — 99.69 %
α decay → Cm-250 — 0.31 %

Related calculators

Decay Activity ↔ mass Source category Dose rate A1/A2 and package type

Other isotopes of this element

Cf-252

Reference data vs computed valuesHalf-life, gamma lines and D-value are reference data (ENDF/B-VIII.0, НП-067-24).Gamma constant Γ is H*(10) at 1 m computed from ICRP-107 spectra (NIST µ_en/ρ, ICRP-74 Table A.21) including short-lived progeny in equilibrium (e.g. Cs-137/Ba-137m, Ra-226 series); specific activity uses molar mass M ≈ mass number A.

Californium-254 (Cf-254) — reference data

What is in the card

This card gathers the key data of radionuclide Cf-254 in one place: half-life, decay modes, main gamma lines, alpha and beta particle energies, gamma constant, specific activity and the D-value for source categorization. Decay and emission data are from ENDF/B-VIII.0; the D-value follows NP-067-24; the gamma constant is the ambient dose equivalent H*(10) at 1 m, computed from ICRP-107 spectra.

How to use the data

Half-life and specific activity let you recalculate the activity of a Cf-254 source to the delivery or disposal date — use the decay calculator. Gamma lines with yields identify the nuclide from a spectrum and pick the line for gamma spectrometry; the gamma constant Γ gives the dose rate at a distance, while the D-value and A1/A2 set the source category and the package type for transport.