Donald William KerstBorn 1 Nov 1911; died 19 Aug 1992 at age 80.American physicist who invented the betatron (1940), the first device to accelerate electrons (“beta particles”) to speeds high enough to have sufficient momentum to produce nuclear transformations in atoms. The electrons are accelerated by electromagnetic induction in a doughnut-shaped (toroidal) ring from which the air has been removed. This type of particle accelerator can produce high-energy electrons up to 340 MeV for research purposes, including the production of high-energy X-rays. For such high velocities, the magnetic field is increased to match the relativistic increase in mass of the particles. During WW II, Kerst worked at Los Alamos on tue atomic bomb project. He completed the largest betatron in 1950, at the University of Illinois. |
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