Particle accelerator
Tags: electron cathode anode Category: technologyParticle accelerator, any device that produces a beam of fast-moving, electrically charged atomic or subatomic particles. Physicists use accelerators in fundamental research on the structure of nuclei, the nature of nuclear forces, and the properties of nuclei not found in nature, as in the transuranium elements and other unstable elements. Accelerators are also used for radioisotope production, industrial radiography, radiation therapy, sterilization of biological materials, and a certain form of radiocarbon dating. The largest accelerators are used in research on the fundamental interactions of the elementary subatomic particles.
This article reviews the development of accelerators and delineates the various types and their distinguishing features. For specific information about the particles accelerated by these devices, see atom and subatomic particle.
Principles Of Particle Acceleration
Particle accelerators exist in many shapes and sizes (even the ubiquitous television picture tube is in principle a particle accelerator), but the smallest accelerators share common elements with the larger devices. First, all accelerators must have a source that generates electrically charged particles—electrons in the case of the television tube and electrons, protons, and their antiparticles in the case of larger accelerators. All accelerators must have electric fields to accelerate the particles, and they must have magnetic fields to control the paths of the particles. Also, the particles must travel through a good vacuum—that is, in a container with as little residual air as possible, as in a television tube. Finally, all accelerators must have some means of detecting, counting, and measuring the particles after they have been accelerated through the vacuum.
Generating particles
Electrons and protons, the particles most commonly used in accelerators, are found in all materials, but for an accelerator the appropriate particles must be separated out. Electrons are usually produced in exactly the same way as in a television picture tube, in a device known as an electron “gun.” The gun contains a cathode (negative electrode) in a vacuum, which is heated so that electrons break away from the atoms in the cathode material. The emitted electrons, which are negatively charged, are attracted toward an anode (positive electrode), where they pass through a hole. The gun itself is in effect a simple accelerator, because the electrons move through an electric field, as described below. The voltage between the cathode and the anode in an electron gun is typically 50,000–150,000 volts, or 50–150 kilovolts (kV).
As with electrons, there are protons in all materials, but only the nuclei of hydrogen atoms consist of single protons, so hydrogen gas is the source of particles for proton accelerators. In this case the gas is ionized—the electrons and protons are separated in an electric field—and the protons escape through a hole. In large high-energy particle accelerators, protons are often produced initially in the form of negative hydrogen ions. These are hydrogen atoms with an extra electron, which are also formed when the gas, originally in the form of molecules of two atoms, is ionized. Negative hydrogen ions prove easier to handle in the initial stages of large accelerators. They are later passed through thin foils to strip off the electrons before the protons move to the final stage of acceleration.