Mendelevium

Mendelevium (Md) — 10-Year Trends

As of 2026-09-25 · the last 10 years

Research intensity has fallen to about 10% of the element's all-time peak, a steady decline from the window's start.

Research intensity ran from about 21% of the element's own all-time peak in 2016 to about 10% in 2026 — a steady decline, and the all-time peak (1959) lies before this window. Over the same span its share of research attention across all elements fell. Among the 118 elements, mendelevium has one of the smaller research literatures of any element.

The number of papers involving the element fell from about 19 in 2016 to about 9 in 2025 (0.47x). That is slower than the literature as a whole grew over the same years, so the element lost ground in the wider body of research.

The research community of Superheavy Nuclei, Heavy-Ion Collisions, and Nuclear Structure is the sole material focus of recent work, holding 100% of the element's clustered research in the current period, up from 57% in the previous five years. Mendelevium is a minor presence in this much larger community, with under 1% of its papers involving the element. A 2020 theoretical study of spectroscopic properties, cited about 11 times, anchors this work, alongside a 2019 paper on automated aqueous-phase chemistry apparatuses, cited about 6 times. Other communities, including Lanthanide and Actinide Coordination Chemistry and Stable Isotope Geochemistry, have seen their share of mendelevium-related work decline to zero in the current period.

For a deeper look at mendelevium's current standing, see the Last 12 Months and Executive Brief reports.