The magnetic resonance accelerator, or cyclotron, was the first cyclic accelerator and the first resonance accelerator that produced particles energetic enough to be useful for nuclear research. For many years the highest particle energies were those imparted by cyclotrons modeled upon Lawrence’s archetype. In these devices, commonly called classical cyclotrons, the accelerating electric field oscillates at a fixed frequency, and the guiding magnetic field has a fixed intensity.
Classical cyclotrons
The key to the operation of a cyclotron is the fact that the orbits of ions in a uniform magnetic field are isochronous; that is, the time taken by a particle of a given mass to make one complete circuit is the same at any speed or energy as long as the speed is much less than that of light. (As the speed of a particle approaches that of light, its mass increases as predicted by the theory of relativity.) This isochronicity makes it possible for a high voltage, reversing in polarity at a constant frequency, to accelerate a particle many times. An ion source is located at the centre of an evacuated chamber that has the shape of a short cylinder, like a pillbox, between the poles of an electromagnet that creates a uniform field perpendicular to the flat faces. The accelerating voltage is applied by electrodes, called dees from their shape: each is a D-shaped half of a pillbox. The source of the voltage is an oscillator—similar to a radio transmitter—that operates at a frequency equal to the frequency of revolution of the particles in the magnetic field. The electric fields caused by this accelerating voltage are concentrated in the gap between the dees; there is no electric field inside the dees. The path of the particle inside the dees is therefore circular. Each time the particle crosses the gap between the dees, it is accelerated, because in the time between these crossings the direction of the field reverses. The path of the particle is thus a spiral-like series of semicircles of continually increasing radius.
Some means of focusing is required; otherwise, a particle that starts out in a direction making a small angle with the orbital plane will spiral into the dees and be lost. While the energy of the particle is still low, this focusing is supplied by the accelerating electric fields; after the particle has gained significant energy, focusing is a consequence of a slight weakening of the magnetic field toward the peripheries of the dees, as in the betatron.
The energy gained by a particle in a classical cyclotron is limited by the relativistic increase in the mass of the particle, a phenomenon that causes the orbital frequency to decrease and the particles to get out of phase with the alternating voltage. This effect can be reduced by applying higher accelerating voltages to shorten the overall acceleration time. The highest energy imparted to protons in a classical cyclotron is less than 25 MeV, and this achievement requires the imposition of hundreds of kilovolts to the dees. The beam current in a classical cyclotron operated at high voltages can be as high as five milliamperes; intensities of this magnitude are very useful in the synthesis of radioisotopes.
Synchrocyclotrons
Cyclotrons in which the frequency of the accelerating voltage is changed as the particles are accelerated are called synchrocyclotrons, frequency-modulated (FM) cyclotrons, or phasotrons. Because of the modulation, the particles do not get out of phase with the accelerating voltage, so that the relativistic mass increase does not impose a limit on the energy. Moreover, the magnetic focusing can be made stronger, so that the magnetic field need not be so precisely shaped.
Because of the phenomenon of phase stability, it is unnecessary to program the frequency of the accelerating voltage precisely to follow the decreasing frequency of revolution of the particles as they are accelerated. To see how phase stability affects the operation of a cyclotron, consider a particle moving in an orbit. Let the frequency of the accelerating voltage match the orbital frequency of this particle. If the particle crosses the accelerating gap at the time the accelerating voltage is zero, its energy and orbital radius will remain unchanged; it is said to be in equilibrium. There are two such times during each cycle of the accelerating voltage; only one of these (that at which the voltage is falling, rather than rising, through zero) corresponds to stable equilibrium. If a particle should arrive a short time before the voltage has fallen to zero, it is accelerated. Its speed therefore increases, but the radius of its orbit increases by an even larger proportion, so that the particle will take longer to reach the gap again and will next cross it at a time closer to that at which it would receive no acceleration. If, on the other hand, the particle reaches the gap a short time after the voltage has fallen through zero, its speed is diminished, and the radius of its orbit is diminished even more, so that it takes less time to reach the gap again, arriving—like the other particle—at a time closer to that at which it receives no acceleration. This phenomenon, by which the trajectories of errant particles are continually corrected, confers stability on the entire beam and makes it possible to accelerate the particles uniformly, by modulating the frequency, without dispersing them. The small periodic variations of the particles about the equilibrium values of phase and energy are called synchrotron oscillations.
In the operation of a synchrocyclotron, particles are accelerated from the ion source when the frequency of the accelerating voltage is equal to the orbital frequency of the particles in the central field. As the frequency of the voltage falls, the particles, on the average, encounter an accelerating field. They oscillate in phase but around a value that corresponds to the average acceleration. The particles reach the maximum energy in bunches, one for each time the accelerating frequency goes through its program. The intensity of the beam is a few microamperes, much lower than that of a classical cyclotron.
Large synchrocyclotrons have been constructed in many countries. They are used primarily for research with secondary beams of pi-mesons. The practical upper limit of the energy of a synchrocyclotron, set by the cost of the huge magnets required, is about 1 GeV.
Sector-focused cyclotrons
The sector-focused cyclotron is another modification of the classical cyclotron that also evades relativistic constraint on its maximum energy. Its advantage over the synchrocyclotron is that the beam is not pulsed and is more intense. The frequency of the accelerating voltage is constant, and the orbital frequency of the particles is kept constant as they are accelerated by causing the average magnetic field on the orbit to increase with orbit radius. This ordinarily would cause the beam to spread out in the direction of the magnetic field, but in sector-focused cyclotrons the magnetic field varies with the angular position as well as with the radius; this produces the equivalent of alternating-gradient focusing (see below Synchrotrons). This principle was discovered in 1938 by Llewellyn H. Thomas, then at Ohio State University, but was not applied until the alternating-gradient synchrotron was invented in 1952. Several of these devices, sometimes called azimuthally varying field (AVF) cyclotrons, have been built for use in nuclear and medical research. The world’s largest cyclotron, at the TRIUMF laboratory in Vancouver, B.C., Can., is a sector-focused machine. Its magnet, which weighs 4,000 metric tons and is 18 metres (59 feet) in diameter, is divided into six equal sectors arranged like a “pinwheel.” Its maximum energy is 520 MeV, and it is used mainly for research in subatomic particle physics.
Linear resonance accelerators
The technology required for designing a useful linear resonance accelerator was developed after 1940. These accelerators require very powerful sources of radio-frequency accelerating voltage. Further, a practical linear accelerator for heavy particles, such as protons, must make use of the principle of phase stability.
Linear accelerators fall into two distinct types: standing-wave linear accelerators (used for heavy particles) and traveling-wave linear accelerators (used to accelerate electrons). The reason for the difference is that, after electrons have been accelerated to a few megaelectron volts in the first few metres of a typical accelerator, they have speeds very close to that of light. Therefore, if the accelerating wave also moves at the speed of light, the particles do not get out of phase, as their speeds do not change. Protons, on the other hand, must reach much higher energies before their speeds can be taken as constant, so the accelerator design must allow for the prolonged increase in speed.
Linear electron accelerators
The force that acts on electrons in a traveling-wave accelerator is provided by an electromagnetic field with a frequency near 3,000 MHz (1 MHz = 1,000,000 Hertz, or 1,000,000 cycles per second)—a microwave. The acceleration chamber is an evacuated cylindrical pipe that serves as a waveguide for the accelerating field. The phase velocity of an electromagnetic wave in a cylindrical pipe is greater than the velocity of light in free space, so the wave must be slowed down by the insertion of metal irises a few centimetres apart in the pipe. In the intense field the electrons gain about 2 MeV every 30 centimetres (12 inches) or so. The microwaves are produced by large klystrons (high-frequency vacuum-tube amplifiers) with power outputs of 20–30 megawatts. Because sources of radio-frequency power of this magnitude must be operated intermittently (they will not survive continuous service), the beams from these accelerators are delivered in short bursts.
Pulses of electrons are injected at energies of a few hundred kiloelectron volts (that is, speeds about half that of light). The accelerator is so designed that, during the first part of the acceleration, the electrons are caused to gather into bunches, which then are accelerated nearly to the speed of light. Subsequently, the electrons move with the crest of the electromagnetic wave.
Linear electron accelerators are manufactured commercially. They are used for radiography, for cancer treatment, and as injectors for electron synchrotrons.
The 3.2-km (2-mile) linear electron accelerator at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California is the source of very energetic beams of electrons and positrons, up to a maximum of 50 GeV. The positrons are produced as secondary particles when the electron beam is allowed to strike a target one-third of the distance along the accelerator, and they are later fed back into the machine, alternately with electrons, for acceleration along its full length. In the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), which operated from 1989 to 1998, the electrons and positrons were directed into two separate arcs of magnets at the far end of the accelerator. The arcs formed a loop to bring the two beams into head-on collision at a total energy of about 100 GeV.
Linear electron accelerators constructed of superconducting materials have been developed. Such structures dissipate far less energy than conventional metal structures, allowing a continuous electron beam, rather than a pulsed beam, to be accelerated. This principle is being exploited to good effect at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) in Newport News, Va. This consists of two 250-metre (820-foot) linear accelerators joined at each end by semicircular arcs to form an oval “racetrack.” Electrons are injected at 45 MeV and can be accelerated to energies of 4 GeV or more, the highest energies being reached after the beams have completed five circuits of the machine.
Linear proton accelerators
The design principle applied in linear accelerators for protons was originated by Luis Alvarez at Berkeley in 1946. It is based on the formation of standing electromagnetic waves in a long cylindrical metal tank or cavity. In the design that has been adopted, the electric field is parallel to the axis of the tank. Most of these accelerators operate at frequencies of about 200 MHz—lower than the frequencies employed in linear electron accelerators, owing to the lower velocity of the heavier protons.
During the time required for a proton to traverse one of these tanks, the accelerating electric fields undergo many reversals of direction. In Alvarez’s design the decelerating effect of the field during the intervals when it opposes the motion of the particles is prevented by installing on the axis of the tank a number of “drift tubes.” The electric field is zero inside the drift tubes, and, if their lengths are properly chosen, the protons cross the gap between adjacent drift tubes when the direction of the field produces acceleration and are shielded by the drift tubes when the field in the tank would decelerate them. The lengths of the drift tubes are proportional to the speeds of the particles that pass through them.
It would appear that any error in the magnitude of the accelerating voltages would cause the particles to lose the synchronism with the fields needed for proper operation of the device, but the principle of phase stability reduces to a manageable magnitude the need for precision in construction. It also makes possible an intense beam because protons can be accelerated in a stable manner even if they do not cross the gaps at exactly the intended times. The principle is the same as that of a synchrotron, except that the gap-crossing time for stable phase oscillations coincides with the rise, rather than the fall, of the voltage wave. If a proton arrives at the accelerating gap late, it receives a larger-than-normal increment of energy, enabling it to “catch up.”
A very large amount of radio-frequency power is required for producing the accelerating voltages. This makes it necessary for linear proton accelerators to be operated in a pulsed mode. They are supplied with protons accelerated to about 750 keV by a Cockcroft-Walton generator. The entering beam passes through an accelerating radio-frequency cavity a short distance upbeam from the main linear accelerator, so that, as the particles pass through the first drift tubes, they are already bunched.
As the particle energy increases in the Alvarez design, the drift tubes become longer, and an increasing proportion of the energy stored in the system is not used for acceleration. A more-efficient design, developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is the side-coupled-cavity structure. In this design walls divide the long Alvarez tank into individual cavities that are linked by relatively short drift tubes. Smaller cavities along one side feed radio-frequency power to pairs of adjacent accelerating cavities in such a way that an alternating electric field is set up along the axis of the overall cylindrical structure. Particles traveling along the axis pass from one cell to the next just as the alternating electric field reverses direction, so they always experience an accelerating field. As the velocity of the particles increases, the lengths of the cavities must also increase along the accelerator.
The highest-energy proton linear accelerator is at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The protons are accelerated to 100 MeV in Alvarez-type tanks and then to 800 MeV in a standing-wave linear accelerator of the side-coupled-cavity type operated at a frequency of 805 MHz. The accelerator, 785 metres (2,500 feet) long, produces a beam carrying a current in excess of one milliampere, which delivers a power of more than 800 kilowatts. It was built in the late 1960s to provide beams for nuclear research, in particular intense secondary beams of pi-mesons, but it has since become more important as a source of protons to generate neutron beams. Since 1995 it has formed part of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), dedicated to research with neutrons.
The intense pulses of protons produced by linear accelerators make them useful injectors for proton synchrotrons. The highest-energy injector of this kind is at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill. The 150-metre- (500-foot-) long machine consists of five Alvarez-type tanks followed by a side-coupled-cavity linear accelerator that accelerates to a final energy of 400 MeV.