While many of us may not be familiar with the name, we maybe 

have all witnessed its hair-

raising effects. In 1931, American physicist Robert Jemison Van de Graaff built the Van de Graaff
generator to create static electricity and make it available for experimentation. Whether you've ever
gotten a shock from touching something metal or laid your palm on a Van de Graaff generator to
enjoy the sensationally spiky impact it has on your hair, you've encountered static electricity in one
way or another, knowingly or unintentionally.
To comprehend the Van de Graaff generator and its function, we must first understand static
electricity. We may have done some static electricity experiments in science class. When you rub a
glass rod with a silk cloth or a piece of amber with wool, for example, the glass and amber produce
a static charge that attracts small fragments of paper or plastic. Atoms, which are themselves
made up of charged particles, make up all matter. The nucleus of an atom is made up of neutrons
and protons. They also have an electron-based "shell" encircling them. Matter is usually neutrally
charged, which means that the quantity of electrons and protons is equal. An atom is negatively
charged if it has more electrons than protons. It is positively charged if it has more protons than
electrons.
A Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic generator that creates very high electric
potentials by accumulating electric charge on a hollow metal globe on top of an insulated column
using a moving belt. At low current levels, it generates very high voltage direct current (DC)
electricity. It works by accumulating charge on a hollow metal structure shaped like a globe, which
is placed on top of an insulating column, producing in a very high electric potential on the order of a
few million volts. This generates a vast electric field, which is intended to accelerate charged
particles. Modern Van de Graaff generators can reach potential differences of up to 5 megavolts. A
tabletop version may generate up to 100 kV and store enough energy to generate visible electric
sparks. Small Van de Graaff machines are made for fun and to teach electrostatics in physics
classes; larger ones are kept and shown in science museums. This device has found widespread
use not only in atomic research but also in medicine and industry.
So, how does Van de Graaff generators work? The triboelectric effect causes electrons to
flow from one roller to the rubber belt within the Van de Graaff generator, and from the rubber belt
to the other roller. The top and bottom brushes serve as a source and sink for these charges, and
the top brush is electrically connected to the Van de Graaff’s dome, allowing the charge propagate
across the dome. This collected charge will spread out across anything you link to the metal dome,
including your volunteer, in order to distribute itself across as broad a volume as possible. The
reason it's important to stand them on something electrically insulating is that the charge wants to
spread out even more across the entire Earth, and connecting them to something like that will both
massively reduce the effect and also cause an electric shock as the current flows from the Van de
Graaff to Earth through unfortunate human intermediary. When a volunteer is insulated, the build
up of charge compels light things to spread out as far as possible, causing confetti or foil to leap
from the hand and individual hairs on the head to stand up. When they get off the stool, the charge
immediately flows to the ground, and their hair returns to normal.
The gadget bearing Van de Graaff’s name is capable of producing extraordinarily high
voltages, up to 20 million volts. The generator was invented by Van de Graaff to provide the high
energy required by early particle accelerators. Its high potential is used to accelerate subatomic
particles to high speeds in an evacuated tube. Until the cyclotron was invented in the 1930’s, it was
the most powerful type of accelerator. Van de Graaff generators are still employed as accelerators
in nuclear research and medicine to generate energetic particle and x-ray beams. Atom smashers
were so named because they accelerated subatomic particles to extremely high speeds before
smashing them into the target atoms. Other subatomic particles and high-energy radiation, such as
X-rays, were formed as a result of the collisions. Particle and nuclear physics are built on the ability
to create these high-energy collisions.