Livermorium · element 116
Named after a Californian laboratory but born in Russia, and its first claimed discovery turned out to be fraud
Key facts
Livermorium's story has a false start. In 1999 a team at Berkeley announced that they had made elements 118 and 116, which would have been a triumph for American physics. Within two years the laboratory withdrew the claim after concluding that one of its researchers had fabricated the data. The real element 116 was made the following year in Russia, by firing calcium-48 at curium-248 at Dubna in July 2000.
The name honours Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, whose scientists worked alongside the Dubna team on every element from 114 to 118. Livermorium sits under polonium in group 16, the group that begins with oxygen, though it is not expected to behave much like oxygen at all.
Where it is found
Livermorium does not exist in nature. Its isotopes decay within a fraction of a second, so nothing could have survived from the events that made the Earth's elements. Every livermorium atom has been made in a laboratory, and the total is a few dozen across all experiments since 2000.
It is made by hot fusion. A beam of calcium-48 strikes a target of curium-248 or curium-245, both artificial elements bred in nuclear reactors and available only in milligram quantities. The fused nucleus sheds three or four neutrons to leave livermorium-290, 291, 292 or 293. Each atom is identified by the alpha particle it emits on becoming flerovium, followed by the rest of the decay chain down through copernicium.
How it was discovered
The Berkeley claim of 1999 used a krypton-86 beam on lead-208 and reported element 118 decaying to 116. Other laboratories could not reproduce it, and when Berkeley re-analysed its own data the events were not there. The paper was retracted in 2001 and the laboratory concluded that a member of the team had fabricated the results.
Meanwhile Yuri Oganessian's group at Dubna, with colleagues from Livermore, detected a single atom of livermorium on 19 July 2000, followed by more in 2001. Further decay chains satisfied reviewers, and in 2011 IUPAC credited the Dubna and Livermore collaboration jointly with elements 114 and 116. The name and symbol Lv were approved in May 2012. The city of Livermore is itself named after Robert Livermore, an English-born rancher who settled there in the nineteenth century.
What we use it for
Livermorium has no applications, and its chemistry has never been studied. Its longest-lived isotope survives for around sixty milliseconds, far too short for even the fastest gas-phase techniques, and it is made only a few atoms at a time.
Its value is in nuclear physics. Livermorium isotopes with more neutrons live longer, and comparing their half-lives helps map the approach to the island of stability. Each atom decays into flerovium and then copernicium, so every livermorium event also yields data on those elements. Chemists have predictions waiting to be tested. Relativity should split the 7p electrons into two groups, one very tightly held, so livermorium is expected to favour +2, find +4 difficult, and almost never form the -2 ion that oxygen and sulfur form so readily.
Reading the numbers
The atomic mass of 293 is the longest-lived known isotope. The physical values are predictions. A melting point around 709 kelvin, about 436 degrees Celsius, and a boiling point near 1085 kelvin, about 812 degrees Celsius, would make livermorium a moderately low-melting metal, a little above polonium in both respects. The predicted density of about 12.9 grams per cubic centimetre compares with 9.2 for polonium. None of these figures has been measured.
The configuration [Rn] 5f14 6d10 7s2 7p4 gives four electrons in the 7p shell, placing livermorium in group 16 with oxygen, sulfur, selenium, tellurium and polonium. Elements become steadily more metallic down that group, and livermorium is expected to be fully metallic. Relativistic stabilisation of two of the 7p electrons means it should behave as if it had only two active electrons, favouring +2.
Safety and the environment
Livermorium is radioactive and exceptionally short-lived, with half-lives of tens of milliseconds at most. It cannot be collected, stored or released. The few dozen atoms ever produced were made inside shielded accelerator facilities and detected only through their decay. There is no livermorium in the environment and no way for the public to encounter it.
Did you know?
- A 1999 claim to have discovered elements 116 and 118 at Berkeley was retracted after the laboratory concluded that data had been fabricated.
- The Dubna and Livermore collaboration has been credited with five elements: flerovium, moscovium, livermorium, tennessine and oganesson.
- The city of Livermore, and hence the element, takes its name from Robert Livermore, an English sailor who became a Californian rancher in the 1800s.
- Livermorium and flerovium were named on the same day, 31 May 2012.
- The curium targets used to make livermorium are themselves synthetic, produced by irradiating plutonium in reactors over many months.
More in the superheavy elements
The nearest neighbours of livermorium in the family, by atomic number.
See all 15 superheavy elements on one page, or browse all 118 elements. Also listed under the post-transition metals.
Frequently asked questions
Why is livermorium called livermorium?
It is named after Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, whose scientists collaborated with the Dubna laboratory in Russia on the discovery. The name was approved by IUPAC in 2012.
Who discovered livermorium?
A joint team from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States. They made the first atom in July 2000 by firing calcium-48 at a curium-248 target.
What is the half-life of livermorium?
Very short. The longest-lived known isotope, livermorium-293, has a half-life of around sixty milliseconds. Lighter isotopes decay in less than ten milliseconds.
Is livermorium a metal?
It is predicted to be a metal, continuing the trend in group 16 where elements become more metallic further down. Its chemistry has never been tested because it decays too quickly and is made in too small quantities.
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Written by Anthony. Updated September 2026. Numerical data from Periodic-Table-JSON (CC BY-SA), cross-checked against the Livermorium reference article. Spotted an error? Tell us.