 178m2Hf is a particularly attractive candidate for induced gamma emission (IGE) experiments, because of its high density of stored energy, 2.5 MeV per nucleus, and long 31-year half life for storing that energy.If radiation from some agent could "trigger" a release of that stored energy, the resulting cascade of gamma photons would have the best chance of finding a pair of excited states with the inverted lifetimes needed for stimulated emission.While induced emission adds only power to a radiation field, stimulated emission adds coherence.