How to Use radioisotope in a Sentence

radioisotope

noun
  • Iodine radioisotopes have half-lives that span from a tenth of a second to 16 million years.
    — Andrea Richard, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2025
  • Each of the thousands of available radioisotopes has a different set of properties.
    — Andrea Richard, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2025
  • That leaves nuclear fission and radioisotope power as the only viable options for deep-space missions.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • Their work spans full-sized RTGs and small radioisotope heater units designed to keep instruments warm on frigid worlds.
    — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 14 Nov. 2025
  • The physics of such a device is essentially that of a solar cell, except that the source of the radiation is from a radioisotope instead of the sun.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • Enough heat should have also been generated within the body through the radioactive decay of radioisotopes locked up in its rocks — that would've melted the ice.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 1 July 2025
  • It has even been used in space in the form of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, like those that powered the Voyager probes.
    — Preeti Nair, Space.com, 7 Dec. 2025
  • While some isotopes are stable, the majority are radioactive and called radioisotopes.
    — Andrea Richard, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2025
  • The radioisotope is crucial for fueling long-term deep space missions, but as of 2017, a shortage was on the horizon.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 8 Jan. 2019
  • Every year their batteries lose up to 4 watts of power due to the decay of plutonium-238, the radioisotope that fuels them.
    — Sumeet Kulkarni, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2022
  • After being injected with a radioisotope and riding a stationary bike, the young doctor was gentle in the face of discouraging films and old news.
    — Sorayya Khan, Longreads, 8 Feb. 2018
  • The specific power provided here is a measure of how much power an ideal, pure radioisotope source can generate per unit of mass at the beginning of its life.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • Cesium-137, or Cs-137, is a manmade radioisotope of cesium.
    — Sara Tenenbaum, CBS News, 22 Dec. 2025
  • The three radioisotope generators on ship, which use the slow decay of a lump of plutonium to provide it with electricity, could keep working for decades to come.
    — The Economist, 7 Sep. 2017
  • Radioisotopes that live for a few seconds don’t exist long enough to perform medical procedures, and radioisotopes that live for years would harm the patient and their family.
    — Andrea Richard, The Conversation, 2 Oct. 2025
  • All radioisotopes are expensive to procure and are typically only available in small quantities.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • The decay energy is a measure of the kinetic energy of emitted particles as the radioisotope decays.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • The company focuses on producing radioisotopes used in nuclear medicine.
    — Raul Trey Lopez, San Antonio Express-News, 12 Mar. 2026
  • With a chemical makeup similar to calcium, strontium-90, a radioisotope found in fallout, is easily absorbed in teeth and bones.
    — Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • It is powered by a radioisotope generator that produces around 100 watts of continuous energy.
    — Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 26 Nov. 2025
  • Past missions have used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) to power deep-space probes where solar light is faint.
    — Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Typically used in medical devices and gauges, the FDA notes that the radioisotope is a byproduct of nuclear reactions.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 21 Aug. 2025
  • Comparable legacy systems would require roughly 10 kg of radioisotope material for the same output.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 11 Feb. 2026
  • So far, radioisotope power systems (RPSs) in space have utilized plutonium-238 (Pu-238) as a fuel source.
    — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 26 Sep. 2025
  • The company also builds radioisotope power systems, which are compact electricity generators used by defense agencies and aerospace programs.
    — Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 17 June 2026
  • In many nuclear battery designs, adjacent semiconductors absorb the radiation released by the radioisotopes’ nuclei and convert it to an electric current, much like a solar cell does.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • The current radioisotope workhorse in space is the radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG, which produces a few hundred watts.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • The company says its conversion efficiency exceeds 60 percent—about six times as efficient as the best radioisotope power generators.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Aug. 2025
  • Turning waste into power At the heart of the project is a radiovoltaic device that uses radioisotopes such as Strontium-90 to generate electricity.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 17 June 2026
  • Voyager 1 is slowly losing power The spacecraft is powered by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
    — George Petras, USA Today, 25 Nov. 2025

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

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