# US Lab Finds A Faster Way To Make Californium-252, A Nuclear Isotope Worth Millions Per Gram Not Found Naturally On Earth

- Link: https://www.widthness.com/us-lab-finds-a-faster-way-to-make-californium-252-a-nuclear-isotope-worth-millions-per-gram-not-found-naturally-on-earth/
- Published: 2026-08-11T09:45:00-05:00
- Author: Curated by John Wysocki

Photo: Technicians look into a hot cell in the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center where Cf-252 is produced. Photo credit: Carlos Jones, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy via Flickr. CC BY 4.0 (no modifications). Article by Tom Hale. IFLScience – August 10, 2026. Californium-252 is a very strange radioactive isotope. It doesn’t occur naturally on Earth, it furiously spits out neutrons, and it’s notoriously expensive to produce. Outside of Russia, virtually all known stocks of californium-252 (Cf-252) come from one place – Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee — and researchers there have just announced a new way to produce it. […] Click here to view original web page at www.iflscience.com Curated by John Wysocki Chief Technical Officer See Full Bio