Betatron

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Early betatron at University of Illinois. Kerst is at right, examining the vacuum chamber between the poles
of the 4-ton magnet.

A German 6 MeV betatron (1942)

A 35 MeV betatron used for photonuclear physics at the University of Melbourne.

A betatron is a type of cyclic particle accelerator. It is essentially a transformer with a torus-
shaped vacuum tube as its secondary coil. An alternating current in the primary coils
accelerates electrons in the vacuum around a circular path. The betatron was the first machine
 capable of producing electron beams at energies higher than could be achieved with a
simple electron gun.[1]
The betatron was developed in 1935 by Max Steenbeck in Germany to accelerate
electrons,[2][3][4][5][6][7] but the concepts ultimately originate from Rolf Widerøe,[8][9] whose
development of an induction accelerator failed due to the lack of transverse
focusing.[10] Subsequent development occurred in the United States through Donald Kerst in the
1940s.[11][12][13]

Contents

 1Operation principle
 2Etymology
 3Applications
 4Limitations
 5References
 6External links

Operation principle[edit]
In a betatron, the changing magnetic field from the primary coil accelerates electrons injected
into the vacuum torus, causing them to circle around the torus in the same manner as current is
induced in the secondary coil of a transformer (Faraday's Law).
The stable orbit for the electrons satisfies

where

is the flux within the area enclosed by the electron orbit,

is the radius of the electron orbit, and

is the magnetic field at .

In other words, the magnetic field at the orbit must be half the average magnetic
field over its circular cross section:

This condition is often called Widerøe's condition.[14]

Etymology[edit]
The name "betatron" (a reference to the beta particle, a fast electron) was
chosen during a departmental contest. Other proposals were "rheotron",
"induction accelerator", "induction electron accelerator",[15] and even
"Außerordentlichehochgeschwindigkeitselektronenentwickelndesschwerarbe
itsbeigollitron", a suggestion by a German associate, for "Hard working by
golly machine for generating extraordinarily high velocity electrons"[16][17] or
perhaps "Extraordinarily high velocity electron generator, high energy by
golly-tron."[18]

Applications[edit]
Betatrons were historically employed in particle physics experiments to
provide high-energy beams of electrons—up to about 300 MeV. If the
electron beam is directed at a metal plate, the betatron can be used as a
source of energetic x-rays, which may be used in industrial and medical
applications (historically in radiation oncology). A small version of a betatron
was also used to provide a source of hard X-rays (via deceleration of the
electron beam in a target) for prompt initiation of some experimental nuclear
weapons by means of photon-induced fission and photon-neutron
reactions in the bomb core.[19][20][21]
The Radiation Center, the first private medical center to treat cancer
patients with a betatron, was opened by Dr. O. Arthur Stiennon in a suburb
of Madison, Wisconsin in the late 1950s.[22]

Limitations[edit]
The maximum energy that a betatron can impart is limited by the strength of
the magnetic field due to the saturation of iron and by practical size of the
magnet core. The next generation of accelerators, the synchrotrons,
overcame these limitations.