Dynamitron Operating Principles

Accelerators, such as the Dynamitron, work on the same principle as a television tube. Electrons are generated by a heated filament which forms the electron gun. A voltage gradient draws the electrons away from the gun and accelerates them through the vacuum tube. As the high voltage beam of electrons passes from the beam tube and through the scan magnet, an oscillating magnetic field sweeps the beam back and forth across the scan window.

A television operates at about 25 kV, which is enough to generate images from the electrons striking the fluorescent screen of the picture tube. The voltage of the Dynamitron, however, ranges from 500kV to 5 MeV which is high enough to accelerate the electrons through the metal foil of the scan window and irradiate product passing beneath. Electrons accelerated under a voltage of 5 MeV are traveling at approximately 99.6% of the speed of light, or nearly 300,000 km/sec, when they enter the scan window.

Beam current is an indication of the number of electrons being accelerated. In a television set, beam current is in the order of several microamps. In a Dynamitron, the beam current is a thousand times higher. It is interesting to note that 1 mA of beam current represents about 6 million billion electron particles every second.

Where the objective of a television is to create a picture, a Dynamitron bundles electrons into a 3 to 5 cm diameter beam to irradiate industrial products. The enormous number of electrons and the high acceleration voltage produces rapid reactions by operating directly on the molecules within the product. This produces an efficiency that is outstanding when compared to other methods such as heat, light, and chemical reagents.