You are on page 1of 3

SO WHAT IS A PARTICLE ACCELERATOR?

A particle accelerator is a machine that accelerates particles to extremely high energies. These particles are elementary particleslike electrons or protons, or - in special experiments - even whole atoms (heavy ions). In modern accelerators the particles very quickly reach almost the speed of light, There are two types of accelerators: linear accelerators that resemble a "particle cannon" and accelerate particles over a long, straight line, and circular accelerators, where strong magnets bend the particle's path into a circle. The advantage of the latter is that the circle can be traversed many times and the particles can be accelerated over an extended period of time. A major drawback is that due to the deflection in the magnetic field the particles continuously loose energy by synchrotron radiation. LINAC

Linear high-energy accelerators use a linear array of plates (or drift tubes) to which an alternating highenergy field is applied. As the particles approach a plate they are accelerated towards it by an opposite polarity charge applied to the plate. As they pass through a hole in the plate, the polarity is switched so that the plate now repels them and they are now accelerated by it towards the next plate. Normally a stream of "bunches" of particles are accelerated, so a carefully controlled AC voltage is applied to each plate to continuously repeat this process for each bunch. But in the tubes itself, the electrons travel at a steady speed they drift cuz there is no e. field in the tubes. A linear particle accelerator consists of the following elements:

The particle source. The design of the source depends on the particle that is being moved. Electrons are generated by a cold cathode, a hot cathode, aphotocathode, or radio frequency (RF) ion sources. Protons are generated in an ion source, which can have many different designs. If heavier particles are to be accelerated, (e.g., uraniumions), a specialized ion source is needed.

A high voltage source for the initial injection of particles. A hollow pipe vacuum chamber. The length will vary with the application. If the device is used for the production of X-rays for inspection or therapy the pipe may be only 0.5 to 1.5 meters long. If the device is to be an injector for a synchrotron it may be about ten meters long. If the device is used as the primary accelerator for nuclear particle investigations, it may be several thousand meters long.

Within the chamber, electrically isolated cylindrical electrodes are placed, whose length varies with the distance along the pipe. The length of each electrode is determined by the frequency and power of the driving power source and the nature of the particle to be accelerated, with shorter segments near the source and longer segments near the target. The mass of the particle has a large effect on the length of the cylindrical electrodes; for example an electron is considerably lighter than a proton and so will generally require a much smaller section of cylindrical electrodes as it accelerates very quickly. Likewise, because its mass is so small, electrons have much less kinetic energy than protons at the same speed. Because of the possibility of electron emissions from highly charged surfaces, the voltages used in the accelerator have an upper limit, so this can't be as simple as just increasing voltage to match increased mass.

One or more sources of radio frequency energy, used to energize the cylindrical electrodes. A very high power accelerator will use one source for each electrode. The sources must operate at

precise power, frequency and phase appropriate to the particle type to be accelerated to obtain maximum device power.

Quadrupole magnets surrounding the linac of the Australian Synchrotron are used to helpfocus the electron beam

An appropriate target. If electrons are accelerated to produce X-rays then a water cooled tungsten target is used. Various target materials are used when protons or other nuclei are accelerated, depending upon the specific investigation. For particle-to-particle collision investigations the beam may be directed to a pair of storage rings, with the particles kept within the ring by magnetic fields. The beams may then be extracted from the storage rings to create head on particle collisions.

As the particle bunch passes through the tube it is unaffected (the tube acts as a Faraday cage), while the frequency of the driving signal and the spacing of the gaps between electrodes are designed so that the maximum voltage differential appears as the particle crosses the gap. This accelerates the particle, imparting energy to it in the form of increased velocity. At speeds near the speed of light, the incremental velocity increase will be small, with the energy appearing as an increase in the mass of the particles. In portions of the accelerator where this occurs, the tubular electrode lengths will be almost constant.

CYCLOTRON
A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator in whichcharged particles accelerate outwards from the center along a spiral path. The particles are held to a spiral trajectory by a static magnetic field and accelerated by a rapidly varying (radio frequency) electric field.

A cyclotron contains two hollow D-shaped electrodes, called dees, in a vacuum chamber between the poles of a powerful electromagnet. A source of electrically charged particles lies at the center of the chamber. In operation, the electric field between the dees draws charged particles from the source into one of the dees, and the magnetic field produced by the electromagnet makes the particles move in a circular path. The electric field between the dees alternates rapidly so that the particles are accelerated each time they cross the gap between the dees. As they speed up, the particles travel in ever-larger circles within the dees, yet the time they take to complete each

revolution remains the same. At the outer edge of the dees, a deflector plate guides the particles toward the target.
Cyclotrons accelerate charged particle beams using a high frequency alternating voltage which is applied between two "D"-shaped electrodes (also called "dees"). An additional static magnetic field is applied in perpendicular direction to the electrode plane, enabling particles to re-encounter the accelerating voltage many times at the same phase.[1] To achieve this, the voltage frequency must match the particle's cyclotron resonance frequency

, with the relativistic mass m and its charge q. This frequency is given by equality of centripetal forceand magnetic Lorentz force. The particles, injected near the centre of the magnetic field, increase theirkinetic energy only when recirculating through the gap between the electrodes; thus they travel outwards along a spiral path. Their radius will increase until the particles hit a target at the perimeter of the vacuum chamber, or leave the cyclotron using a beam tube, enabling their use e.g. for particle therapy. Various materials may be used for a target, and the collisions will create secondary particles which may be guided outside of the cyclotron and into instruments for analysis.

Detector The rays from the cathode C pass through a slit in the anode A, which is a metal plug fitting tightly into the tube and connected with the earth; after passing through a second slit in another earth-connected metal plug B, they travel between two parallel aluminium plates about 5 cm. long by 2 broad and at a distance of 1.5 cm. apart; they then fall on the end of the tube and produce a narrow well-defined phosphorescent patch.

You might also like