Ununquadium was first produced by scientists working at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia in 1998. They bombarded atoms of plutonium with ions of calcium. This produced a single atom of ununquadium-289, an isotope with a half-life of about 21 seconds.

Ununquadium's most stable isotope, ununquadium-289, has a half-life of about 21 seconds. It decays into ununbium-285 through alpha decay.

Since only a few atoms of unnunquadium have ever been produced, it currently has no uses outside of basic scientific research.