DSE 02T – Nuclear and Particle Physics

Particle Accelerators
Linear accelerator, Cyclotron, Synchrotrons

Linear particle accelerator

A particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high

speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear
beamline is called a linear particle accelerator (linac). Linacs serve as particle
injectors for higher-energy accelerators, and are used directly to achieve the highest
kinetic energy for light particles (electrons and positrons) for particle physics. Linacs
generate X-rays and high energy electrons for medicinal purposes in radiation
therapy.

Construction and operation

The design of a linac depends on the type of particle that is being accelerated:
electrons, protons or ions. Laboratory based Linacs range in size of a cathode ray
tube length. 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.

Fig. 1

A simple sketch of linear particle accelerator is shown in Fig. 1. A straight hollow

pipe vacuum chamber is the main body which contains the other components. It is
evacuated with a vacuum pump so that the accelerated particles will not collide with
air molecules.

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The particle source (S) at one end of the chamber which produces the charged
particles which the machine accelerates (Fig. 1). The design of the source depends
on the particle that is being accelerated. Electrons are generated by a cold cathode,
a hot cathode, a photocathode, or radio frequency (RF) ion sources. Protons are
generated in an ion source. If heavier particles are to be accelerated, (e.g., uranium
ions), a specialized ion source is needed. The source has its own high voltage
supply to inject the particles into the beamline.

Extending along the pipe from the source is a series of open-ended cylindrical
electrodes (C1, C2, C3, C4), whose length increases progressively with the distance
from the source. The particles from the source pass through these electrodes. The
length of each electrode is determined by the frequency and power of the driving
power source and the particle to be accelerated, so that the particle passes through
each electrode in exactly one-half cycle of the accelerating voltage. 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.

A target (not shown in Fig. 1) with which the particles collide, located at the end of
the accelerating electrodes. If electrons are accelerated to produce X-rays then
water cooled tungsten target is used. Various target materials are used when
protons or other nuclei are accelerated, depending upon the specific investigation.
Behind the target are various detectors to detect the particles resulting from the
collision of the incoming particles with the atoms of the target.

An electronic oscillator and amplifier (G) generates a radio frequency AC voltage of

thousands of volts which is applied to the cylindrical electrodes. This is the
accelerating voltage which produces the electric field which accelerates the particles.
Opposite phase voltage is applied to successive electrodes. A high power
accelerator will have a separate amplifier to power each electrode, all synchronized
to the same frequency.

The oscillating voltage applied to alternate cylindrical electrodes has opposite

polarity (180° out of phase), so adjacent electrodes have opposite voltages. This
creates an oscillating electric field (E) in the gap between each pair of electrodes,
which exerts force on the particles when they pass through, imparting energy to

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them by accelerating them. The particle source injects a group of particles into the
first electrode once each cycle of the voltage, when the charge on the electrode is
opposite to the charge on the particles. The electrodes are made the correct length
so that the accelerating particles take exactly one-half cycle to pass through each
electrode. Each time the particle bunch passes through an electrode, the oscillating
voltage changes polarity, so when the particles reach the gap between electrodes
the electric field is in the correct direction to accelerate them. Therefore, the particles
accelerate to a faster speed each time they pass between electrodes; there is little
electric field inside the electrodes so the particles travel at a constant speed within
each electrode.

The particles are injected at the right time so that the oscillating voltage differential
between electrodes is maximum as the particles cross each gap. If the peak voltage
applied between the electrodes is V, and the charge on each particle is
elementary charges, the particle gains an equal increment of energy of eV when
passing through each gap. Thus the output energy of the particles is

= eV

Where, is the number of accelerating electrodes in the machine.

The velocity of the particles at this point

2
=

Where, is the mass of concerned particle. Here, the initial energy of the particles
as they enter the first stage of the accelerator is neglected.

Since particles travel with gradually increasing (constant) velocity through open-
ended cylindrical electrodes, it is necessary to increase the length ( )of each
electrode to maintain resonance condition which is the time taken by the particle to
pass through each electrode at any stage must be exactly equal to one-half cycle
( )of the accelerating voltage, i.e.,

= =
2 2

This gives,

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 DSE 02T – Nuclear and Particle Physics

2
= =
2 2

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. Additional magnetic or electrostatic lens elements may be included to
ensure that the beam remains in the center of the pipe and its electrodes.

Advantages and limitations

The linear accelerator could produce higher particle energies than the previous
electrostatic particle accelerators (Cockcroft-Walton accelerator and Van de Graaff
generator). In these machines, the particles were only accelerated once by the
applied voltage, so the particle energy in eV was equal to the accelerating voltage on
the machine, which was limited to a few million volts by insulation breakdown. In the
linac, the particles are accelerated multiple times by the applied voltage, so the
particle energy is not limited by the accelerating voltage.

High power linacs are also being developed for production of electrons at relativistic
speeds, required since fast electrons traveling in an arc will lose energy through
synchrotron radiation; this limits the maximum power that can be imparted to
electrons in a synchrotron of given size. Linacs are also capable of prodigious
output, producing a nearly continuous stream of particles, whereas a synchrotron will
only periodically raise the particles to sufficient energy to merit a "shot" at the target.
The high mass output also makes the device practical for the production of
antimatter particles, which are generally difficult to obtain, being only a small fraction
of a target's collision products. These may then be stored and further used to study
matter-antimatter annihilation.

Cyclotron

A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. It accelerates charged particles outwards

from the center of a flat cylindrical vacuum chamber 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. Cyclotrons were the most powerful

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particle accelerator technology when they were superseded by the synchrotron, and
are still used to produce particle beams in physics and nuclear medicine.

Construction and operation

A cyclotron accelerates a charged particle beam using a high frequency alternating

voltage which is applied between two hollow "D"-shaped sheet metal electrodes
called "dees" inside a vacuum chamber (Fig. 2). The dees are placed face to face
with a narrow gap between them, creating a cylindrical space within them for the
particles to move. The particles are injected into the center of this space. The dees
are located between the poles of a large electromagnet which applies a static
magnetic field (B) perpendicular to the electrode plane. The magnetic field causes
the particles' path to bend in a circle due to the Lorentz force perpendicular to their
direction of motion.

If the particles' speeds were constant, they would travel in a circular path within the
dees under the influence of the magnetic field. However a radio frequency (RF)
alternating voltage of several thousand volts is applied between the dees. The
voltage creates an oscillating electric field in the gap between the dees that
accelerates the particles. The frequency is set so that the particles make one circuit
during a single cycle of the voltage. To achieve this, the frequency must match the
particle's cyclotron resonance frequency =

Fig. 2

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Where B is the magnetic field strength, q is the electric charge of the particle and m
is the relativistic mass of the charged particle. Each time after the particles pass to
the other dee electrode the polarity of the RF voltage reverses. Therefore, each time
the particles cross the gap from one dee electrode to the other, the electric field is in
the correct direction to accelerate them. The particles' increasing speed due to these
pushes causes them to move in a larger radius circle with each rotation, so the
particles move in a spiral path outward from the center to the rim of the dees. When
they reach the rim a small voltage on a metal plate deflects the beam so it exits the
dees through a small gap between them, and hits a target located at the exit point at
the rim of the chamber, or leaves the cyclotron through an evacuated beam tube to
hit a remote target. Various materials may be used for the target, and the nuclear
reactions due to the collisions will create secondary particles which may be guided
outside of the cyclotron and into instruments for analysis.

The cyclotron was the first "cyclical" accelerator. The advantage of the cyclotron
design over the existing electrostatic accelerators like Cockcroft-Walton accelerator
and Van de Graaff generator, was that in these machines the particles were only
accelerated once by the voltage, so the particles' energy was equal to the
accelerating voltage on the machine, which was limited by air breakdown to a few
million volts. In the cyclotron, in contrast, the particles encounter the accelerating
voltage many times during their spiral path, and so are accelerated many times, so
the output energy can be many times the accelerating voltage.

Particle energy

Since the particles in a cyclotron are accelerated by the voltage many times, the final
energy of the particles is not dependent on the accelerating voltage but on the
strength of the magnetic field and the diameter of the accelerating chamber, the
dees. Cyclotrons can only accelerate particles to speeds much slower than the
speed of light. For nonrelativistic particles, the centripetal force ( ) required to keep
them in their curved path is

where, is the particle's mass, its velocity, and is the radius of the path. This
force is provided by the Lorentz force ( ) of the magnetic field ( )

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where, is the particle's charge. The particles reach their maximum energy at the
periphery of the dees, where the radius of their path is = the radius of the dees.
Equating these two forces

So the output energy of the particles is

1
= =
2 2

Therefore, the limit to the cyclotron's output energy for a given type of particle is the
strength of the magnetic field ( ), which is limited to about 2 T for ferromagnetic
electromagnets, and the radius of the dees ( ), which is determined by the diameter
of the magnet's pole pieces.

Radius of the orbit after the nth dee-crossing can be found as

1 2
=

Where, is the radio frequency voltage accelerating the particle at each dee-
crossing. It can also be said that the successive orbits get closer together as
become larger.

Advantages and limitations

The cyclotron was an improvement over the linear accelerators (linacs) that were
available when it was invented, being more cost- and space-effective due to the
iterated interaction of the particles with the accelerating field. Initially, it was not
possible to generate the high power, high-frequency radio waves which are used in
modern linacs (generated by klystrons). As such, impractically long linac structures
were required for higher-energy particles. The compactness of the cyclotron reduces
other costs as well, such as foundations, radiation shielding, and the enclosing
building. Cyclotrons have a single electrical driver, which saves both money and

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power. Furthermore, cyclotrons are able to produce a continuous stream of particles

at the target, so the average power passed from a particle beam into a target is
relatively high.

The spiral path of the cyclotron beam can only "sync up" with klystron-type (constant
frequency) voltage sources if the accelerated particles are approximately obeying
Newton's laws of motion. If the particles become fast enough that relativistic effects
become important, the beam becomes out of phase with the oscillating electric field,
and cannot receive any additional acceleration. The classical cyclotron is therefore
only capable of accelerating particles up to a few percent of the speed of light. To
accommodate increased mass the magnetic field may be modified by appropriately
shaping the pole pieces as in the isochronous cyclotrons, operating in a pulsed
mode and changing the frequency applied to the dees as in the synchrocyclotrons,
either of which is limited by the diminishing cost effectiveness of making larger
machines. Cost limitations have been overcome by employing the more complex
synchrotron or modern, klystron-driven linear accelerators, both of which have the
advantage of scalability, offering more power within an improved cost structure as
the machines are made larger.

Synchrotrons

A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the

cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop
path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed path increases
with time during the accelerating process, being synchronized to the increasing
kinetic energy of the particles. The most powerful modern particle accelerators use
versions of the synchrotron design. Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva,
Switzerland is the largest synchrotron-type accelerator ever. It can accelerate beams
of protons to energy of 6.5 TeV.

Types
Several types of synchrotron machines are used today:
(i) Storage ring synchrotron: It is a special type of synchrotron in which the kinetic
energy of the particles is kept constant.

(ii) Synchrotron light source: It is a combination of different electron accelerator

types, including a storage ring in which the desired electromagnetic radiation is

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generated. In addition to the storage ring, it usually contains a linac and another
synchrotron called a booster. The linac and the booster are used to successively
accelerate the electrons to their final energy before they are magnetically "kicked"
into the storage ring.

(iii) Cyclic collider synchrotron: It is also a combination of different accelerator

types, including two intersecting storage rings and the respective pre-accelerators.

Construction and operation

The synchrotron evolved from the cyclotron. While a classical cyclotron uses both a
constant guiding magnetic field and a constant-frequency electromagnetic, its
successor, the isochronous cyclotron, works by local variations of the guiding
magnetic field, adapting the increasing relativistic mass of particles during
acceleration. In a synchrotron, this adaptation is done by variation of the magnetic
field strength in time, rather than in space. For particles that are not close to the
speed of light, the frequency of the applied electromagnetic field may also change to
follow their non-constant circulation time. By increasing these parameters
accordingly as the particles gain energy, their circulation path can be held constant
as they are accelerated. This allows the vacuum chamber for the particles to be a
large thin torus compared to a disk as in previous. Also, the thin profile of the
vacuum chamber allowed for a more efficient use of magnetic fields than in a
cyclotron, enabling the cost-effective construction of larger synchrotrons.

The maximum energy that a cyclic accelerator can impart is typically limited by the
maximum strength of the magnetic fields and the minimum radius (maximum
curvature) of the particle path. Thus one method for increasing the energy limit is to
use superconducting magnets, these not being limited by magnetic saturation.
Electron/positron accelerators may also be limited by the emission of synchrotron
radiation, resulting in a partial loss of the particle beam kinetic energy. The limiting
beam energy is reached when the energy lost to the lateral acceleration required
maintaining the beam path in a circle equals the energy added each cycle.

A simplified diagram of a synchrotron is shown in the diagram (Fig. 3). Particles are
shot into the ring at A from a linear accelerator and are bent into the ring by a series
of magnets (M). Every orbit they pass through an accelerating gap G and their
energy is increased. The radius of the evacuated tube is fixed and so the magnetic

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field must steadily be increased as the energy of the particles increases to keep the
radius of their orbit constant. There are some straight sections with many magnets to
deflect the particles into a virtually circular course.

Fig. 3

As their path is bent by the magnets the charged particles emit electromagnetic
radiation named ‘synchrotron radiation’.

In the synchrotron the frequency has to be varied as the particle velocity increases
since the orbit radius remains constant. Frequency ( ) is directly proportional to .

1
= =
2

More powerful accelerators are built by using large radius paths and by using more
numerous and more powerful microwave cavities. Lighter particles (such as
electrons) lose a larger fraction of their energy when deflected. Practically speaking,
the energy of electron/positron accelerators is limited by this radiation loss, while this
does not play a significant role in the dynamics of proton or ion accelerators. The
energy of such accelerators is limited strictly by the strength of magnets and by the
cost.

Advantages and limitations

Most modern accelerators are synchrotrons as they can be built much larger and
hence give much greater energies. The magnetic field need only cover the vacuum
tube, not the whole area of the ring as in a cyclotron.

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Unlike in a cyclotron, synchrotrons are unable to accelerate particles from zero

kinetic energy; one of the obvious reasons for this is that its closed particle path
would be cut by a device that emits particles. Thus, schemes were developed to
inject pre-accelerated particle beams into a synchrotron. The pre-acceleration can be
realized by a chain of other accelerator structures like a linac or another synchrotron;
all of these in turn need to be fed by a particle source comprising a simple high
voltage power supply.

Starting from an appropriate initial value determined by the injection energy, the field
strength of the dipole magnets is then increased. If the high energy particles are
emitted at the end of the acceleration procedure, e.g. to a target or to another
accelerator, the field strength is again decreased to injection level, starting a new
injection cycle. Depending on the method of magnet control used, the time interval
for one cycle can vary substantially between different installations.

Applications

Synchrotrons are used in protein and large-molecule crystallography, in LIGA based

micro-fabrication, in X-ray lithography, in analyzing chemicals to determine their
composition, in Inorganic material crystallography and microanalysis, in
Fluorescence studies, in Semiconductor material analysis and structural studies, in
Medical imaging and in calibration of detectors and radiometric standards.

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Practice Questions

① What is a linear particle accelerator?

② How does a linear particle accelerator work?

③ If there are drift tubes in a linear accelerator, prove that the total length of the
accelerator is

2
=
3 2

④ What is a cyclotron?

⑤ What is the principle of working of a cyclotron?

⑥ What particles can be accelerated by a cyclotron?

⑦ Prove that the radius of the orbit of an ion in a fixed frequency cyclotron after the
th
dee-crossing is given by

1 2
=

Where, and are the charge and mass of the ion; is the radio frequency voltage
accelerating the particle at each dee-crossing.

⑧ What is a synchrotron?

⑨ What are the types of synchrotrons?

⑩ What is a synchrotron used for?

⑪ What are the advantages of synchrotron over cyclotron?

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