View source for Thulium

=== X-ray source ===
Despite its high cost, portable X-ray devices use thulium that has been bombarded with neutrons in a [[nuclear reactor]] to produce the isotope thulium-170, having a half-life of 128.6 days and five major emission lines of comparable intensity (at 7.4, 51.354, 52.389, 59.4 and 84.253&nbsp;keV). These [[radioactive source]]s have a useful life of about one year, as tools in medical and dental diagnosis, as well as to detect defects in inaccessible mechanical and electronic components. Such sources do not need extensive radiation protection{{snd}}only a small cup of lead.<ref name="appl">{{cite book |page= 32 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=F0Bte_XhzoAC&pg=PA32 |title= Extractive metallurgy of rare earths |author= Gupta, C. K. |author2= Krishnamurthy, Nagaiyar |name-list-style= amp |publisher= CRC Press |date= 2004 |isbn= 0-415-33340-7}}</ref>
They are among the most popular radiation sources for use in [[industrial radiography]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lOCjakwiRWAC&pg=PA55 |title=Practical Radiography |isbn=978-1-84265-188-9 |last1=Raj |first1=Baldev |last2=Venkataraman |first2=Balu |date=2004|publisher=Alpha Science Int'l }}</ref>
Thulium-170 is gaining popularity as an X-ray source for cancer treatment via [[brachytherapy]] (sealed source radiation therapy).<ref>
{{cite journal
|last= Krishnamurthy
|first= Devan
|author2= Vivian Weinberg
|author3= J. Adam M. Cunha
|author4= I-Chow Hsu
|author5= Jean Pouliot
|title= Comparison of high–dose rate prostate brachytherapy dose distributions with iridium-192, ytterbium-169, and thulium-170 sources
|journal= Brachytherapy
|volume= 10
|issue= 6
|pages= 461–465
|date= 2011
|doi= 10.1016/j.brachy.2011.01.012
|pmid= 21397569}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ayoub |first1=Amal |chapter=Development of New Radioactive Seeds Tm-170 for Brachytherapy |date=2009 |chapter-url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-642-03474-9_1 |title=World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, September 7 - 12, 2009, Munich, Germany |volume=25/1 |pages=1–4 |editor-last=Dössel |editor-first=Olaf |access-date=2023-04-01 |place=Berlin, Heidelberg |publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-03474-9_1 |isbn=978-3-642-03472-5 |last2=Shani |first2=Gad |series=IFMBE Proceedings |editor2-last=Schlegel |editor2-first=Wolfgang C.}}</ref>