Linear particle accelerator

A linear particle accelerator speeds charged particles along a straight path through successive electric-field gaps. Its structures synchronize the fields with the particles so they gain energy as they travel.

Radio-frequency cavity: A resonant structure that stores electromagnetic energy and creates electric fields at radio frequencies. Its oscillating fields provide repeated energy boosts to particle bunches.
Charged particle: A particle with a nonzero electric charge that responds to electromagnetic fields. Only charged particles can be accelerated directly by the linac’s electric fields.
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center: A United States research laboratory built around a two-mile electron linear accelerator. Its accelerator enabled high-energy electron experiments and later served multiple research programs.
Cyclotron: A circular accelerator that uses a magnetic field to bend particles repeatedly across an accelerating gap. Unlike a linac, it reuses a compact path for many acceleration passes.
Rolf Widerøe: A Norwegian physicist who demonstrated an early radio-frequency linear accelerator in 1928. His drift-tube prototype established a key principle for later linacs.
Drift-tube linac: A linear accelerator whose drift tubes shield particles while electric fields reverse between gaps. This structure lets particles cross each gap when the field accelerates them.
Electric field: A physical field that exerts force on electric charges. The field does work on particles as they cross accelerating gaps.
European XFEL: An X-ray free-electron laser facility in Germany that uses a superconducting electron linac. Its linac drives intense, ultrashort X-ray pulses for experiments.
Synchrotron: A circular accelerator that synchronizes magnetic fields with particles traveling around a fixed ring. Its repeated turns can reach high energies without a straight structure of comparable length.
Ernest Lawrence: An American physicist who developed the cyclotron and helped establish accelerator-based nuclear physics. His circular machine became a major alternative to early linear designs.

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