Fission product yield

Long-lived fission products
Nuclide t1⁄2 Yield Q[a 1] βγ
(Ma) (%)[a 2] (keV)
99Tc 0.211 6.1385 294 β
126Sn 0.230 0.1084 4050[a 3] βγ
79Se 0.327 0.0447 151 β
135Cs 1.33  6.9110[a 4] 269 β
93Zr 1.53  5.4575 91 βγ
107Pd 6.5   1.2499 33 β
129I 16.14   0.8410 194 βγ
  1. ^ Decay energy is split among β, neutrino, and γ if any.
  2. ^ Per 65 thermal neutron fissions of 235U and 35 of 239Pu.
  3. ^ Has decay energy 380 keV, but its decay product 126Sb has decay energy 3.67 MeV.
  4. ^ Lower in thermal reactors because 135Xe, its predecessor, readily absorbs neutrons.
Medium-lived
fission products
t½
(year) 		Yield
(%) 		Q
(keV) 		βγ
155Eu  4.76 0.0803  252 βγ
85Kr 10.76 0.2180  687 βγ
113mCd 14.1  0.0008  316 β
90Sr 28.9  4.505   2826 β
137Cs 30.23 6.337   1176 βγ
121mSn 43.9  0.00005 390 βγ
151Sm 88.8  0.5314  77 β

Nuclear fission splits a heavy nucleus such as uranium or plutonium into two lighter nuclei, which are called fission products. Yield refers to the fraction of a fission product produced per fission.

Yield can be broken down by:

  1. Individual isotope
  2. Chemical element spanning several isotopes of different mass number but same atomic number.
  3. Nuclei of a given mass number regardless of atomic number. Known as "chain yield" because it represents a decay chain of beta decay.

Isotope and element yields will change as the fission products undergo beta decay, while chain yields do not change after completion of neutron emission by a few neutron-rich initial fission products (delayed neutrons), with half-life measured in seconds.

A few isotopes can be produced directly by fission, but not by beta decay because the would-be precursor with atomic number one less is stable and does not decay (atomic number grows by 1 during beta decay). Chain yields do not account for these "shadowed" isotopes; however, they have very low yields (less than a millionth as much as common fission products) because they are far less neutron-rich than the original heavy nuclei.

Yield is usually stated as percentage per fission, so that the total yield percentages sum to 200%. Less often, it is stated as percentage of all fission products, so that the percentages sum to 100%. Ternary fission, about 0.2–0.4% of fissions, also produces a third light nucleus such as helium-4 (90%) or tritium (7%).