But some alpha emitters, like americium 241, made the cut, and others, like polonium 210, did not.

Mr. Litvinenko's death tells us that "smoky bombs" based on alpha emitters very well could.

For a discussion of environmental contamination by alpha emitters please see actinides in the environment.

"Smoky bombs" based on alpha emitters might easily be just as dangerous as beta or gamma emitting dirty bombs.

Being an alpha emitter, it combines high energy radiation with low penetration and thereby requires minimal shielding.

One method for testing for (and measuring) many alpha emitters is to use alpha-particle spectroscopy.

The problem is that, as radium-228 builds up in the body, it decays into alpha emitters.

Beside a chemical contamination, Cf, being an alpha emitter, brings undesirable self-damage of the crystal lattice and the resulting self-heating.

For this reason, it has been suggested that the health impact of contamination by alpha emitters might have been substantially underestimated.

The main hazard is its intense radioactivity (as an alpha emitter), which makes it very difficult to handle safely.