Particle Accelerators

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. The simplest example which you may ignore in daily life, is a CRT television tube. It is a simple form of accelerator where electrons emitted from a cathode ray are accelerated.  Particles have different capacity to accelerate according to its utility, from material science to Nuclear energy reactors. This can be used for basic biomedical studies of medical treatments. They can also vary in size, shape and functionality according to what they are accelerating, be it protons, ions, electrons or X rays. LHC at CERN is one of the largest accelerators which can accelerate particle to 7 TeV.

There are two basic types of particle accelerators: electrostatic and oscillating field. .

Electrostatic Accelerators :An electrostatic nuclear accelerator is where

charged particles can be produced by subjection to a static high voltage potential. These developed earlier as they have simple designs and used widely in research labs. Examples are Cockcroft & Walton’s cascade type model and  Van de Graff’s Model.

Cockcroft-Walton model, developed in 1937, was responsible for voltage multiplying, used in development of atomic bomb

Oscillating field Accelerators: Rolf Wideroe in 1928 developed this method, where oscillating electric

potentials are subjected to charged subatomic particles or ions, which greatly increases their velocity . They can be arranged in straight line or circular fashion. When in straight line, they are called Linear Accelerators. Longest Linear accelerator is in Stanford California. It is called SLAC which can accelerate a particle to 50 GeV and is about 2 miles long. Smallest can be in CRT television tube. Accelerators used for X-ray radiotherapy in cancers are also Linear Accelerators varying form 6-30 MeV.

Circular or Cyclic Accelerator move the particles in a circular motion. They are Synchrotrons, Cyclotrons or FFAG.