DARPA’s “Decay on Demand”: Turning Long-Lived Isotopes into Usable Power

Introduction Radioisotopes, essential across a broad spectrum of industries—medical, industrial, and power generation—are facing a pivotal challenge. Many promising daughter product radioisotopes, with applications ranging from advanced cancer therapies to high-efficiency power systems, are trapped within the long decay chains of their parent actinide isotopes. Traditional methods of isotope production, such as those relying on…