deuteron

noun

deu·​ter·​on ˈdü-tə-ˌrän How to pronounce deuteron (audio)
 also  ˈdyü-
: a deuterium nucleus

Examples of deuteron in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The neutron collides with another deuteron in the lattice, imparting some of its own momentum to the deuteron. Bayarbadrakh Baramsai, IEEE Spectrum, 27 Feb. 2022 In the lab, Wu and Shaknov used it to bombard a sheet of copper with deuterons, generating an unstable isotope, Cu 64, as a source of positrons—the antimatter. Michelle Frank, Scientific American, 13 Mar. 2023 Shooting the gold with a proton creates a circular pattern; shooting the gold with a deuteron (a proton-neutron pair) creates an elliptical pattern; and shooting the gold with a helium-3 atom (a proton-proton-neutron trio) creates a triangular pattern. Jake Parks, Discover Magazine, 13 Dec. 2018 The deuteron is a bound state of a proton and a neutron, and the binding comes from the strong force, which is carried by gluons. Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2022 In the first step of this fusion process, two protons inside the sun fuse into a deuteron while giving off a neutrino and a positron—the antiparticle of the electron. Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2022 Then the deuteron captures another proton to form a helium isotope and emits a gamma-ray photon. Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2022 But the police couldn’t pin the crimes on Kamen because the scientist had been locked away in his lab for the past three days, lobbing deuteron particles at a tiny sample of graphite with his colleague, the chemist Samuel Ruben. Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 25 Feb. 2020 Phoenix’s neutron generators fire deuterons into chambers full of tritium, an even heavier form of hydrogen that has a proton and two neutrons as its nucleus. The Economist, 23 Nov. 2019

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'deuteron.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1933, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of deuteron was in 1933

Dictionary Entries Near deuteron

Cite this Entry

“Deuteron.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deuteron. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Medical Definition

deuteron

noun
deu·​ter·​on ˈd(y)üt-ə-ˌrän How to pronounce deuteron (audio)
: a deuterium nucleus

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