Particle accelerators are also used to implant ions in semiconductors to tailor their behaviour in electronics, such as mobile phone chips. They can also be used to change the colour of gemstones, for example an accelerator turns the naturally colourless or brown topaz into the nice blue colour normally associated with it. Without curing, companies would need huge warehouses just for storing things while they dried out. They can be used to activate certain molecules in paint or composite fibres to make it dry faster, this process – called curing – is commonly used in cereal box printing or making aircraft parts. They can also be used for breaking down nasty elements in waste water or flue gases to protect the environment.Įlectrons or X-rays generated from particle accelerators also have a lot of industrial uses. The X-rays from particle accelerators also have the handy side effect of killing bacteria and insects and this has led to them being used for sterilising equipment and for treating tobacco, grain or spices to kill any insects, so reducing waste. A new generation of these scanners may also be able to identify emissions from drugs, or explosives when treated with X-rays. By using two different X-ray energies, we can even distinguish between different materials (similar scanning can also be done using neutrons). ![]() Due to the size of most cargo, a particle accelerator is needed to produce the high energy X-rays that are required. The technology can be used to scan cargo, to ensure that nothing is being smuggled into the country. The same X-ray sources as used in radiotherapy are also commonly used to boost security at ports and airports. In the UK, the NHS is constructing two special radiotherapy centres at Manchester Christie and the University College London hospitals that use protons rather than electrons for radiotherapy, which allow more targeted doses of radiation with less risk to surrounding tissue. The isotopes used in PET scanners are normally produced in a particle accelerator, and accelerated electrons are fired onto targets to produce X-rays for radiotherapy and imaging. Particle accelerators play a vital role in modern healthcare. However, the most common type of particle accelerators are not the big 27km giants but the small industrial and medical accelerators that are all around us. They are even used by chocolate and ice cream makers to study how to make the tastiest products by using X-rays to look at the formation of different crystal structures and how to avoiding icy or chalky parts. There are also medium-sized accelerators that produce intense light or neutrons to allow physicists, biologists and pharmacologists to study materials, viruses, proteins and medicines, leading to countless Nobel prizes and new drugs and vaccines. In itself this knowledge has been vital to the development of many technologies such as MRI scanners in hospitals and nuclear power stations. These experiments allowed us to understand the particles themselves, the world around us, and nuclear physics (the study of the atomic nucleus). These devices were initially invented to study what happens when particles collide with each other or with targets. These electric fields are the invisible force field created by charged objects, like static electricity or high voltage equipment. Particle accelerators accelerate the tiny building blocks of matter by using electric fields to speed them up to high velocity/energy.
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