Irène Joliot-Curie (1897 - 1956) was a French physicist and chemist who, together with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie, discovered artificial (induced) radioactivity, work for which the couple shared the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[1] The elder daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie, she extended her parents' pioneering research into radioactivity and became a leading figure in French nuclear science.
Early life and education
Irène Curie was born on 12 September 1897 in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, the elder daughter of the physicists Marie and Pierre Curie.[2] She was educated in part through a cooperative teaching arrangement organised by her mother among fellow scientists, and later attended the Collège Sévigné before studying at the Faculty of Science in Paris. During the First World War she assisted her mother in operating mobile radiography units that served wounded soldiers near the front.[3]
Scientific career
After the war she worked at the Radium Institute in Paris, which was directed by her mother, and completed a doctorate on the alpha rays of polonium. In 1925 she met Frédéric Joliot, an assistant at the institute; the two married in 1926 and combined their surnames, thereafter publishing much of their research jointly.[2]
Discovery of artificial radioactivity
In 1934 the Joliot-Curies found that bombarding light elements such as aluminium and boron with alpha particles could transform them into new, radioactive isotopes that continued to emit radiation after the bombardment ceased. This demonstration of artificial, or induced, radioactivity opened the way to producing radioisotopes for research and medicine.[1] The following year the couple were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[4]
Public life and later years
Joliot-Curie became a professor at the University of Paris and later a director of the Radium Institute. In 1936 she served briefly as Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research in the Popular Front government, one of the first women to hold a ministerial-level post in France.[3] She was also active in promoting women's education and access to science.
Legacy
Like her mother, Irène Joliot-Curie suffered from prolonged exposure to radiation, and she died of leukemia in Paris on 17 March 1956.[2] Her work on artificial radioactivity remains fundamental to nuclear physics, chemistry and nuclear medicine, and her name is among those honoured on commemorative listings of women in science.
