Cyclotron

Alpha particles, protons and neutrons can be made much more effective projectiles if they
are imparted with high velocity so that they can easily overcome the columbic energy barrier.
Cyclotron is used to accelerate this particles. In its common form it consists of two flat
semicircular boxes called "dees" because of their (D - like shape marked as D1 and D2).

These are surrounded by a vessel containing hydrogen, helium, deuterium gas at low
pressure. This vessel is placed between the poles of an electromagnet where high frequency
alternating potential of several million cycles per second is applied across D1 and D2. Positive
ions are produced at A by the bombardment of Hydrogen, Helium, deuterium by electrons.

Suppose at a particular instant the direction of the applied potential is such that the D1 is
positive and D2 is negative. A positive ion starting from A will move into D2 semicircular path
due to its deflection caused by the magnetic field when the ion reaches the gap between D1 and
D2, it gets exposed to the influence of the applied potential.

If the oscillation frequency is such that during the time the positive ion passes through the
D2, the sign of the potential is reversed i.e., D1 becomes negative and D2 becomes positive. The
ion would get accelerated towards D1. The ion now moves faster than before and therefore the
radius of its path increases. However the time taken by the ion to traverse the "dee" remains the
same because the increased path is exactly compensated by the increase the speed of the ion , this
means that if the oscillation frequency is properly adjusted the ion would always remain in the
phase with a change in potential between "dees". Consequently each time the ion crosses the gap
from D1 to D2 it would be accelerated towards D1.

The (proton) synchrotron

This instrument is used for the acceleration of protons. in this accelerator protons are
made to accelerate in an Orbit of constant radius in a vacuum tube, being forced to stay in this
Orbit by a magnetic field produced by a series of electromagnets placed around the tube. The
diagram shows the approximate shape of the required magnetic field across the vacuum tube in
order to achieve constant orbital radius, the magnetic field is increased as the particles acquire
higher energies in the proton synchrotron as in the cyclotron, the particles are accelerated by an
electric field each time they pass through a pair of electrodes in the tube.

The synchrotron produces protons with energies up to 28 GeV using magnetic field of
magnetic flux density 1.4 T. The super proton synchrotron can accelerate protons to energies up
to 500 eV. As a result of this repeated impulse, the radius of the spiral path of the ion steadily
increases and so does its energy. Finally the ions possessing an energy as high as several hundred
million electron volts and velocity as high as 40000 km per second emerge out of the exit E of
the instrument.

Linear (electron) accelerator

The linear electron accelerator is used specifically for the acceleration of electrons
needed for studying nuclear structure and the subnuclear particles. In this accelerator, electrons
are accelerated down a linear vacuum tube which is more than 2 miles long. The electrons are