Detail

A charged particle accelerator with a main vacuum chamber size of about 0.5 millimeters was created by scientists from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. The inner diameter of the tube is approximately 225 nanometers. In final tests, the accelerator accelerated electrons from 28.4 kiloelectron volts to 40.7 kiloelectron volts; This means an energy gain of approximately 43 percent.

For the first time, we can talk about a particle accelerator on a chip.
– says physicist Roy Shiloch from FAU University.

While the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) creates a magnetic field that accelerates particles up to 99.9% of the speed of light with the help of its 9,000 magnets, the Nanophoton Electron Accelerator (NEA) creates a magnetic field by firing a laser beam at columns. a vacuum chamber. This method also makes it possible to increase the energy of the particle, but the resulting energy field is much weaker.

Accelerated in electrons Energy is about 1 million times less in NEAthan that of an electron in HAC. But scientists believe they could improve the NEA design by dispersing particles more strongly by choosing more efficient materials or changing the arrangement of the columns.

Inventors want to use such miniature devices for: treatment of oncological diseases. Such an accelerator placed on the endoscope could replace more dangerous types of cancer radiotherapy. It would be safer than current radiotherapy.