particle accelerator on a chip ideas

Hi,

Based on the recently reported linear particle "accelerator on a chip":

formatting link

formatting link

formatting link

formatting link

I was thinking about how this could be turned into a circular particle accelerator instead of a linear accelerator. The linear version seems to use a glass (or other transparent insulator) with small cogs in it proportional to the accelerating radiation frequency, so for making a circular accelerator, it would require this to be a circular gear type shape, like a change shown in this image from a linear gear to a circular gear:

formatting link

For the material used I was thinking a scintillator crystal could be used that is energized from the center point of the "gear axle" so that all "teeth" that accelerate the particles will be in phase. There are other ways to do this, ie with multiple fiber lasers going to gear teeth sections too.

formatting link

Now the electrons will be accelerating, but the problem is they will want to travel in a straight line, so the gear needs some holding force to keep them in a circular motion!! At first I was thinking maybe an adjustable DC bias voltage could be used to hold the particle beam while it is rotating, but depending on the feedback for the voltage I'm not sure if this would work?

A simpler new idea I had was to use a different gear tooth design that automatically will hold the particle beam while it travels around the circular gear.

This type of herringbone gear design could provide an axial holding force on the particle beam:

formatting link

formatting link

This other design of herringbone could provide a radial holding force on the particle beam:

formatting link

And for a combined axial+radial holding force on the particle beam, it is possible to "bend" the already triangular herringbone shape into a compound triangle shape so that there is radial and axial holding force.

Now when the gear teeth are energized by a laser and the electric field on them should be able to accelerate the particles and also hold the particle beam in a focused circular beam at the same time I think!

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M
Loading thread data ...

Hi,

Crazy brainstorming mode on:

I think it might also be possible to make one of these ion accelerators using "virtual teeth" created on a smooth substrate, using surface plasmonic oscillations that travel and accelerate free ions above the surface. These traveling wave surface plasmons could be created by a laser setup, and would provide the moving plasmonic electric field for the ions to surf. With this type of setup in 2dimensional chip form, with laser illumination from above, it could be possible to steer the ions around as well floating a fixed distance above the chip.

An XY grid of plasmonic points that can be energized by the laser could be used to turn on each grid point "on or off" corresponding to the plasmonic field at that location, and depending how these are sequenced would accelerate the ions.

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M

The voltage would have to be incredible to keep a high-energy particle traveling in a circle. A cyclotron or synchrotron uses a magnetic field, which is a little more manageable. But in order for the mag field strength to be sane, and to avoid synchrotron radiation losses, you need a big, CERN-sort of radius.

There are tiny accelerators that use electric fields inside crystals... can't recall what they are called. For neutron sources maybe?

--
John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

Hi John,

Thanks I forgot about the small diameter issue causing radiation (ie

1meter circumference would give 299MHz synchrotron radiation I guess.

(299,792,458m/s speed of light)

Not sure what the losses would be, I guess they go way up as the relativistic speed approaches the speed of light though.

So maybe there is no point to making a small circular accelerator! :)

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M

Hi,

For dealing with the synchrotron radiation losses for a small radius accelerator, maybe its possible to use some form of regeneration, ie. capture the emitted radiation and feed it back into the system, still even if that system was 90% efficient it would be far more losses than a larger diameter accelerator.

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M

Hi,

I just realized if you have two beams of ions traveling in opposite directions right beside each other that might neutralize the synchrotron losses, and give a high efficiency regeneration of the synchrotron losses.

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M

Actually, the idea is not new. Decades ago, a physicist at Univ. oF Texas at Austin, Dr. Toshiki Tajima, proposed the idea of acceleration of particles via plasma interaction. Needless to say, his field of expertise was plasma physics. Although he has moved to Japan a few years ago, his work is still being enhanced by current researcher there as Dr. Todd Ditmire at the Petawatt Laser facility at UT.

Reply to
dakupoto

Hi,

Ya surface plasmons might be a good way to do the acceleration, if you can get a plasmon wave travelling in a graphene sheet or tube, that could push along electrons. The surface plasmon propagation speed is lower than the speed of light, so it would require some type of sequenced plasmon wave. Like energizing the graphene in front of the electrons with a laser creating a + charge area to draw them forward (not sure if that is possible), instead of relying on the plasmon propagation in the graphene which is too slow.

If you give a carbon nanotube a high electric charge then maybe you can use it as a particle accelerator tube, so the electron beam inside it will be repelled by the inner wall of the graphene tube if it has a high charge, which might allow for bending paths. An electromagnetic field could be used to vary the charge on the tube for accelerating the electrons, but it would have an overall negative bias too.

Just more crazy ideas! :)

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M

This page shows a new way to make holograms from an array of nano antennas energized by a laser:

formatting link

This could also be used potentially as an ion accelerator, but the electric field of the light would be a lot less than the field in the toothed design, similar to an ironless stator vs an iron backed stator in an electric motor.

cheers, Jamie

Reply to
Jamie M

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.