PHYSICS PROJECT

ON
CYCLOTRON
 CERTIFICATE

This is hereby to certify that, the original and genuine

investigation work has been carried out to investigate
about the subject matter and the related data
collection and investigation has been completed
solely, sincerely and satisfactorily by

regarding her project titled “Cyclotron”.

 Acknowledgements
"There are times when silence speaks so much more
loudly than words of praise to only as good as belittle a
person, whose words do not express, but only put a
veneer over true feelings, which are of gratitude at
this point of time."

It would be my utmost pleasure to express my sincere

thanks to My Physics Teacher

in providing a helping hand in this project.

Their valuable guidance, support and supervision all
through this project titled “CYCLOTRON”, are
responsible for attaining its present form.
INTRODUCTION:
A cyclotron is a machine Used to accelerate charged
particles to high energies. The first cyclotron was built by
Ernest Orlando Lawrence and his graduate student, M.
Stanley Livingston, at the University of California,
Berkley, in the early 1930's.
A cyclotron consists of two D-shaped cavities sandwiched
between two electromagnets. A radioactive source is
placed in the center of the cyclotron and the
electromagnets are turned on. The radioactive source
emits charged particles. It just so happens that a
magnetic field can bend the path of a charged particle so,
if everything is just right, the charged particle will circle
around inside the D-shaped cavities. However, this
doesn't accelerate the particle. In order to do that, the
two D-shaped cavities have to be hooked up to a radio
wave generator. This generator gives one cavity a
positive charge and the other cavity a negative charge.
After a moment, the radio wave generator switches the
charges on the cavities.
The charges keep switching back and forth as long as the
radio wave generator is on. It is this switching of charges
that accelerates the particle.
Let's say that we have an alpha particle inside our
cyclotron. Alpha particles have a charge of +2, so their
paths can bend by magnetic fields. As an alpha particle
goes around the cyclotron, it crosses the gap between
the two D-shaped cavities. If the charge on the cavity in
front of the alpha particle is negative and the charge on
the cavity in back of it is positive, the alpha particle is
pulled forward (remember that opposite charges attract
while like charges repel). This just accelerated the alpha
particle! The particle travels through one cavity and
again comes to the gap. With luck, the radio wave
generator has changed the charges on the cavities in
time, so the alpha particle once again sees a negative
charge in front of it and a positive charge in back of it and
is again pulled forward. As long as the timing is right, the
alpha particle will always see a negative charge in front
of it and a positive charge in back of it when it crosses
the gap between cavities. This is how a cyclotron
accelerates particles!
A cyclotron consists of two D-shaped regions known as
Dee's. In each dee there is a magnetic field perpendicular
to the plane of the page. In the gap separating the dees
there is a uniform electric field pointing from one dee to
the other. When a charge is released from rest in the gap
it is accelerated by the electric field and carried into one
of the dees. The magnetic field in the dee causes the
charge to follow a half-circle that carries it back to the
gap.
While the charge is in the dee the electric field in the gap
is reversed, so the charge is once again accelerated
across the gap. The cycle continues with the magnetic
field in the dees continually bringing the charge back to
the gap. Every time the charge crosses the gap it picks up
speed. This causes the half-circles in the dees to increase
in radius, and eventually the charge emerges from the
cyclotron at high speed.
Definition of Cyclotron
A circular particle accelerator in which charged
subatomic particles generated at a central source are
accelerated spirally outward in a plane perpendicular to a
fixed magnetic field by an alternating electric field. A
cyclotron is capable of generating particle energies
between a few million and several tens of millions of
electron volts.
PRINCIPLE OF CYCLOTRON:
It is based on the principle that a positive ion can acquire
sufficiently large energy with a comparatively smaller
alternating potential difference by making them to cross
the same electric field time and again by making use of a
strong magnetic field.
How the cyclotron works

In the cyclotron, a high-frequency alternating

voltage applied across the "D" electrodes (also called
"dees") alternately attracts and repels
charged particles. The particles, injected near the center
of the magnetic field, accelerate only when passing
through the gap between the electrodes. The
perpendicular magnetic field (passing vertically through
the "D" electrodes), combined with the increasing energy
of the particles forces the particles to travel in a spiral
path.
dees and so they are accelerated (at the typical sub-
relativistic speeds used) and will increase in mass as they
approach the speed of light.
Either of these effects (increased velocity or increased
mass) will increase the radius of the circle and so the
path will be a spiral.
(The particles move in a spiral, because a current of
electrons or ions, flowing perpendicular to a magnetic
field, experiences a force perpendicular to its direction of
motion. The charged particles move freely in a vacuum,
so the particles follow a spiral path.)
The radius will increase until the particles hit a target at
the perimeter of the vacuum chamber. Various materials
may be used for the target, and the collisions will create
secondary particles which may be guided outside of the
cyclotron and into instruments for analysis. The results
will enable the calculation of various properties, such as
the mean spacing between atoms and the creation of
various collision products. Subsequent chemical and
particle analysis of the target material may give insight
into nuclear transmutation of the elements used in the
target.
CYCLOTRON RADIATION:
Cyclotron radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted
by moving charge d particles deflected by a magnetic
field. The Lorentz force on the particles acts
perpendicular to both the magnetic field lines and the
particles' motion through them, creating an acceleration
of charged particles.

FUNCTIONS:
Cyclotrons have a single electrical driver, which saves
both money and power, since more expense may be
allocated to increasing efficiency.
Cyclotrons produce a continuous stream of particles at
the target, so the average power is relatively high.
The compactness of the device reduces other costs, such
as its foundations, radiation shielding, and the enclosing
building.
Advantages of the cyclotron:
Cyclotrons have a single electrical driver, which saves
both money and power, since more expense may be
allocated to increasing efficiency. Cyclotrons produce a
continuous stream of particles at the target, so the
average power is relatively high. The compactness of the
device reduces other costs, such as its foundations,
radiation shielding, and the enclosing building.

Limitations of the cyclotron:

The spiral path of the cyclotron beam can only "sync up"
with klystron-type (constant frequency) voltage sources
if the accelerated particles are approximately
obeying Newton's Laws of Motion. If the particles
become fast enough that relativistic effects become
important, the beam gets out of phase with the
oscillating electric field, and cannot receive any
additional acceleration. The cyclotron is therefore only
capable of accelerating particles up to a few percent of
the speed of light.
USE OF THE CYCLOTRON
For several decades, cyclotrons were the best source of
high-energy beams for nuclear physics experiments;
several cyclotrons are still in use for this type of research.
Cyclotrons can be used to treat cancer. Ion beams from
cyclotrons can be used, as in proton therapy, to
penetrate the body and kill tumors by radiation damage,
while minimizing damage to healthy tissue along their
path.
Cyclotron beams can be used to bombard other atoms to
produce short-lived positron-emitting isotopes suitable
for PET imaging.
There are basically two applications for the cyclotron.
It's a particle accelerator, and, though it can be adapted
to accelerate any charged particle, it is most frequently
applied to accelerate positive charges. Protons are
frequently the choice. We use the cyclotron in the
physics lab, and in medicine.
In the medical area we are developing the cyclotron as a
proton treatment source. More medical facilities are
being set up with the cyclotron providing accelerated
protons to irradiate tissue. The proton, unlike gamma
rays, has a depth of penetration that can be finely tuned
(by "tuning" the cyclotron) to limit damage to other
tissues.
The cyclotron is also used to create radioactive materials
that are used as radiation sources which can be
implanted. The radioactive materials can also be used as
tracers in medical work ups and in research, and also to
provide "luminosity" in some imaging because of the way
tissue takes up these selected materials. These mostly
short-lived radionuclides are "big business" in medical
and biophysics.

In the physics laboratory, we use the cyclotron to create

particle streams that we then slam into targets. This is
the continuation of research to investigate the quantum
mechanical world. The cyclotron can be used to "feed"
another or other accelerators to get higher energies and
a "bigger bang" in the world of collisions.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
NCERT TEXTBOOK FOR CLASS 12
CONCEPTS OF PHYSICS BY H.C. VERMA
WEBSITES-
www.wikipedia.org