稳定性同位素是天然存在的目前技术手段检测不到放射性的一类同位素。与放射性元素示踪技术相比,稳定性同位素技术无辐照伤害、安全、不受半衰期的影响,可适用于长时间的示踪实验,且其测试定量具有超高精度。自20世纪中叶特别是70年代以来稳定同位素技术被广泛应用于核电工业、医学、食品、农业、生态、地质等研究和生产领域。目前已发现的稳定同位素共274种,得到产业化生产并已广泛应用的主要为氘(2H)、碳-13、氮-15、氧-18、氖-22、硼-10等少数几种产品。 硼的稳定同位素在生物、医学、地质等领域和实际生产中有着广泛的应用。在核工业中,10B可用于制造中子计数管、反应堆的控制棒和热中子屏蔽材料。在医学领域,基于10B具有捕获热中子的能力,硼中子俘获治疗癌症是一种新的放疗方法。11B可应用在半导体行业,有11B作为掺杂剂可以使得硅离子布植紧密,从而生产高度集成、高密度的微型芯片。11B也可以作为钢材的添加剂,这种钢材用于制造反应器,可以使反应器的耐高温、耐辐射性能得到大幅度提高。
Stable isotopes are naturally occurring isotopes that their radioactivity cannot be detected by current techniques. Compared with the tracer technique of radioactive element, stable isotope technique has no radiation damage, and it is not affected by half-life period, which can be applied to long time tracer experiment, and its quantitative test has high accuracy. Since the middle of the 20th century, especially since the 1970s, stable isotope technology has been widely used in the research and production fields of nuclear power industry, medicine, food, agriculture, ecology and geology. At present, 274 kinds of stable isotopes have been discovered, and a few products such as deuterium (2H), carbon-13, nitrogen-15, oxygen-18, neon-22 and boron-10 have been widely used in industrial production. The stable isotope of boron is widely used in biology, medicine, geology and other fields. In the nuclear industry, 10B can be used to produce neutron counters, reactor control rods, and thermal neutron shielding materials. In the medical field, boron neutron capture therapy method is a new radiotherapy method for cancer treatment based on the ability of B10 for capturing thermal neutrons. As a dopant, 11B can be applied in the semiconductor industry, which makes silicon ion layout closely, so that the highly integrated and high-density microchips can be produced. 11B can also be used as an additive to the steel used in the manufacture of reactors, which can greatly improve the resistance to high temperature and radiation.