🚀 go-pugleaf

Copy of e-mailed response:

bendix@rro.snafu.de (Ralf Roschinski) writes:
>
>My 18 year old son, now in the USA and without any
>access to the internet, asked me to forward this request:
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>  I would like to get any scientific information any
>  scientist has about how the knowledge obtained from
>  experiment with PARTICLE ACCELERATORS has been used
>  in a technology.
>                           tnx,  Tilman G. Roschinski
>--------------------------------------------------------

The answer depends a bit on what you mean by technology, and what
you mean by accelerator.  For example, fairly small accelerators
are used to do ion implantation in research related to semiconductor
manufacture and as a means of studying the wear of new ceramic
materials (such as pistons for use in a car).  Very large machines
are used to produce x-rays or positrons to probe the properties
of materials, while quite compact machines are used to do atom
scattering to study surface or near-surface properties.  They
can also be used to do trace element identification, which can
be helpful in tracking the source of some object or contamination.

Some of these are direct manufacturing methods, others are used to
learn about the properties of materials that are then used for
various purposes, or to analyze how they behave in use.

The most common direct use of accelerators is in medicine, where
they *are* the technology.  Uses range from direct treatment to the
production of radioisotopes for diagnosis or treatment.  There are
several examples where research developments have been used to
produce new, more efficient designs for such devices.

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