Life is short for the heaviest elements. They emerge from high-energy nuclear collisions with scant time for detection before they break up into lighter atoms. Even et al. report that even a few seconds is long enough for carbon to bond to the 106th element, seaborgium (see the Perspective by Loveland). The authors used a custom apparatus to direct the freshly made atoms out of the hot collision environment and through a stream of carbon monoxide and helium. They compared the detected products with theoretical modeling results and conclude that hexacarbonyl Sg(CO)6 was the most likely structural formula.
Article:
J. Even, A. Yakushev, Ch. E. Düllmann, H. Haba, M. Asai, T. K. Sato, H. Brand, A. Di Nitto, R. Eichler, F. L. Fan, W. Hartmann, M. Huang, E. Jäger, D. Kaji, J. Kanaya, Y. Kaneya, J. Khuyagbaatar, B. Kindler, J. V. Kratz, J. Krier, Y. Kudou, N. Kurz, B. Lommel, S. Miyashita, K. Morimoto, K. Morita, M. Murakami, Y. Nagame, H. Nitsche, K. Ooe, Z. Qin, M. Schädel, J. Steiner, T. Sumita, M. Takeyama, K. Tanaka, A. Toyoshima, K. Tsukada, A. Türler, I. Usoltsev, Y. Wakabayashi, Y. Wang, N. Wiehl, S. Yamaki
Synthesis and detection of a seaborgium carbonyl complex
Science 345, 1491 (2014)
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“Science perspective” written by Prof. Walter Loveland:
Science 345, 1451 (2014)