Direct experimental evidence for very long fission times of super-heavy elements

The blocking technique in single crystals has been applied to reaction time measurements for the 238U + Ge system at 6.1 MeV/nucleon. Backed up with a reaction mechanism analysis using the INDRA 4π detector, it provides a direct experimental evidence for Z = 124 compound nuclei living longer than 10-18 s, indicating thus very high fission barriers for this element.