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Particle beams, usually consisting of charged particles, are used in particle accelerators, CRT televisions, and cancer therapies. They can reach speeds of 99.999% of the speed of light. The most powerful particle beams are found in the Large Hadron Collider.
A particle beam is a beam of accelerated particles, usually charged particles (ions). Real-life applications of a particle beam include particle accelerators (“atom smashers”), in plasma physics, CRT televisions, computer displays, and in cancer therapies. After a brief flurry of particle-beam weaponry research in the 1980s, those investigations were mostly abandoned, with lasers and other directed-energy weapons commanding attention and research dollars today. A natural example of a particle beam would be lightning, where electrons leap from negatively charged clouds to neutral ground.
Most types of particle beams consist of charged particles such as protons or electrons, as charged particles are easy to accelerate using magnets. Most particle beams are created by sweeping a stream of particles through a series of devices, each of which imparts a small push to the beam, until it is accelerated to a significant speed. In some particle accelerators, this speed can reach 99.999% of the speed of light. Particle beams made up of electrons tend to be the fastest, as these particles are more than a thousand times lighter than protons and can therefore be accelerated more easily.
Although the term “particle beam” sounds science fiction, particle beams are found in all CRT televisions. All electrical wires can also be thought to contain some sort of beam of electron particles, even though their path is rarely linear. In a CRT television, a beam of particles is produced by an electron gun. The electron gun fires electrons at a fluorescent screen, which lights up in response to incoming particles, producing an image.
An innovative use of particle beams is in radiation therapy, where a beam of particles is directed to kill cancerous cells. The downside of this approach is damage to healthy cells and the risk of excessive radiation exposure. The mechanism of action is radiation which damages the DNA of malignant cells, making them unable to reproduce themselves. A challenge in this type of radiation therapy is the formation of low-oxygen tumors, tumors that outgrow their blood supply. Tumors with high oxygen levels are ideal for radiation therapy, as bombarding oxygenated tissue with radiation releases numerous free radicals that cause secondary damage to the tumor cells.
The most powerful particle beams in the world are those used in the largest particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider is located in a tunnel 27 km (17 mi) in circumference, up to 175 m (570 ft) deep. Costing approximately $10 billion US dollars (US dollars), the LHC is one of the largest and most expensive machines ever built.
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