Electrostatic particle accelerator: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:42, 26 September 2024

Revision as of 18:28, 22 November 2024

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{{Short description|Accelerates particles with a static electric field}}

{{additional citations|date=September 2024}}

[[Image:Westinghouse Van de Graaff atom smasher - cutaway.png|thumb|upright=1.5|The [[Westinghouse Atom Smasher]], an early [[Van de Graaff accelerator]] built 1937 at the Westinghouse Research Center in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania. The cutaway shows the fabric belts that carry charge up to the mushroom-shaped high voltage electrode. To improve insulation the machine was enclosed in a 65  ft. pressure vessel which was pressurized to 120  psi during operation. The high pressure air increased the voltage on the machine from 1 MV to 5 MV.]]

[[File:KEK Cockcroft-Walton Accelerator (1).jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|750 keV [[Cockcroft-WaltonCockcroft–Walton accelerator]] initial stage of the [[KEK]] accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan. The high voltage generator is right, the ion source and beam tube is at left]]

An '''electrostatic particle accelerator''' is a [[particle accelerator]] in which [[charged particle]]s are accelerated to a high energy by a static [[high voltage]] potential. This contrasts with the other major category of particle accelerator, [[Particle accelerator#Electrodynamic (electromagnetic) particle accelerators|oscillating field particle accelerators]], in which the particles are accelerated by oscillating electric fields.