In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction. Since that motion is always circular, the cyclotron frequency is well defined.
Cyclotrons accelerate charged particles using a high-frequency, alternating voltage (potential difference). A perpendicular magnetic field causes the particles to spiral almost in a circle so that they re-encounter the accelerating voltage many times.
The cyclotron was invented by Leo Szilárd and first manufactured by Ernest Lawrence, of the University of California, Berkeley who started operating it in 1932. Others had been working along similar lines at the time.[citation needed] The first European cyclotron was constructed in Leningrad in the physics department of the Radium Institute, headed by Vitali Khlopin. This instrument was first proposed in 1932 by George Gamow and Lev Mysovskii and was installed and running by 1937.
TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for nuclear and particle physics, houses the world's largest cyclotron. The 18m diameter, 4,000 tonne main magnet produces a field of 0.46 T while a 23 MHz 94 kV electric field is used to accelerate the 300 μA beam. TRIUMF is run by a consortium of sixteen Canadian universities and is located at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
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