The application of electrostatic accelerators in research and industry - A summary

The applications of electrostatic accelerators span fields from art history to zoology. The applications fit into two main groups, materials analysis and materials modification. Materials analysis includes routine use of Rutherford Backscattering (RES) for quality control in semiconductor manufacturing and other areas. Particle Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE) is used in fields from art history through the environmental sciences. X-ray imaging using 5 MeV dc electron beams and Pulsed Fast Neutron Analysis (PFNA) for plastic explosive and drug detection provide promise in the area of security. Accelerator based mass spectrometry (AMS) is having a profound effect on a wide variety of fields which rely on counting extremely rare isotopes in small samples. Accelerators used for materials modification continue to have a significant economic impact in the field of semiconductors. Fabrication of virtually all semiconductor devices now relies on ion implantation with ion beam energies ranging from a few kilovolts to several MeV.