I understand modern weapons actually use enriched uranium tampers, for even more fission. This lets them be even smaller for a given yield.
Gold has been proposed for radiological bombs due to production of 198Au, which decays with a halflife of 2.7 days and produces a 411 keV gamma photon. I understand the 5 MT W71 warhead contained a lot of gold, due to a desire to reduce fission product production to reduce radar interference (it was to be used in the Spartan ABM).
Gold has been proposed for radiological bombs due to production of 198Au, which decays with a halflife of 2.7 days and produces a 411 keV gamma photon. I understand the 5 MT W71 warhead contained a lot of gold, due to a desire to reduce fission product production to reduce radar interference (it was to be used in the Spartan ABM).