Particle Accelerators in Medicine

Abstract

This chapter serves as introduction to particle accelerators used in medicine. Many types of particle accelerator were built for nuclear physics and particle physics research and most of them have also found some use in medicine, mainly for treatment of cancer. Two categories of particle accelerator are known: electrostatic and cyclic. The best-known examples of electrostatic accelerator are the x-ray tube and the neutron generator. Three types of x-ray tube (Crookes tube, Coolidge tube, field emission tube) are discussed in this chapter; neutron generator is discussed briefly in Sect. 9.6.3. Cyclic accelerators fall into two categories: linear and circular. Many different types of circular accelerator have been designed for research purpose and most are also used in medicine, such as the betatron, microtron, cyclotron, and synchrotron.