Determination of lifetimes of isomeric states of /sup 172/Yb and /sup 181/Ta nuclei with single-crystal scintillation time-of-flight spectrometer

It is shown that single-crystal scintillation of time-of-flight spectrometry can be used to measure the half-lives of excited nuclear states starting with 7 nsec. The lifetimes of excited states of /sup 172/Yb (T/sub 1/2/ = 8.85 +/- 0.31 nsec) and /sup 181/Ta (T/sub 1/2/ = 10.21 +/- 0.35 nsec) nuclei are measured.