I would think that neutrons can break up any nucleus apart. Why not just use aluminium or iron. Is it because of E=mc^2 ? Greater mass equals greater energy? Would a bomb made of another material be less radioactive?
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>I would think that neutrons can break up any nucleus apart.
You would be mistaken. The idea that a neutron blasts into an atom like a bullet is not quite right. Instead, what really happens is that the nucleus absorbs the neutron, so that it binds to the nucleus. Is the neutron is going too fast, it’ll bounce off and won’t really add its energy to the nucleus to destabilize it. If the neutron is too slow it won’t be able to overcome the forces keeping it separate and will again just bounce off and do nothing.
Most isotopes of most elements don’t become unstable when they absorb a nucleus like this. Or at least, they don’t become unstable enough to *immediately* decay. Of the ones that do, not many of them will spit out a neutron in the process of decaying. And of *those* that do, not many are stable enough to be safe and stick around long enough for people to actually use them as fuel. That makes for a pretty short list of candidates.
They don’t just uranium and plutonium, either. They have to use very specific isotopes of it. That’s what the “enriched” part means – they have to increase the amount of the isotopes that they need to a certain percentage of the chunk of fuel.
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