Cyclotron

A particle accelerator that repeatedly accelerates charged particles with an alternating electric field while a magnetic field bends them into spiral paths.

Cyclotron frequency: The frequency at which a charged particle orbits in a uniform magnetic field in the nonrelativistic regime. Matching the alternating voltage to this frequency lets particles cross the gap at the right phase.
Ernest Lawrence: An American physicist who invented the cyclotron and developed early particle accelerators. Lawrence conceived and built the first cyclotron with Niels Edlefsen.
Medical isotope production: The production of radioactive isotopes for diagnostic imaging, therapy, and research. Many hospitals and regional facilities use cyclotrons to make short-lived diagnostic isotopes.
Linear particle accelerator: A particle accelerator that moves particles along a straight path through successive accelerating structures. It avoids the repeated circular orbit but needs a longer accelerating path for comparable energies.
Lorentz force: The force on a charged particle due to electric and magnetic fields. Its electric part accelerates particles, while its magnetic part bends their paths.
Niels Edlefsen: A physicist who collaborated with Ernest Lawrence on the first cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. Edlefsen helped construct the prototype that tested Lawrence's accelerator design.
Positron emission tomography: A medical imaging method that detects pairs of photons emitted after positron annihilation. Cyclotrons produce positron-emitting tracers such as fluorine-18 used in PET.
Betatron: A circular electron accelerator that uses a changing magnetic field to induce an accelerating electric field. Unlike a cyclotron, it accelerates electrons by induction rather than repeated gap crossings.
Dees: Hollow D-shaped electrodes used in a classical cyclotron to shield particles from the accelerating electric field inside them. Particles gain energy as they cross the gap between the two electrodes.
Manhattan Project: The United States-led research and development program that produced the first nuclear weapons during World War II. Cyclotrons at Berkeley contributed to wartime isotope separation research.

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