Electron accelerators are used to create X-ray lasers

The most common type of particle accelerator is a linear electron accelerator

Known as linacs, these devices fire particles in a straight line, making them useful for the intense, targeted beams needed in cancer treatment. Circular accelerators, such as synchrotrons and cyclotrons, can achieve extremely high particle speeds through repeated exposure to electromagnetic fields.

Particle accelerators propel matter toward small targets at high speed

Devices like cathode-ray tube televisions were once basic particle accelerators, but modern ones, such as the Large Hadron Collider, use massive magnetic fields and circular tunnels to achieve energies high enough to recreate the conditions just after the big bang.

Stimulating electrons to emit identical photons produces lasers

This effect was predicted by Albert Einstein in 1917, and requires all excited electrons in a material to exist in the same excited metastable state within their atoms. Pumping all atoms through the same mechanism, such as electricity or flash lamps, can create this environment.

Cathode-ray tube televisions are examples of electron accelerators

CRT TVs work by converting electricity into heat, which causes electrons to be emitted from the rear of the device in three beams responsible for the colors red, green, and blue. Electromagnets direct electrons to phosphor molecules on the screen, which emit light and illuminate the pixels.

Explore five of the largest particle accelerators on Earth

Unlike traditional linear accelerators, the CBETA energy recovery linac reduces waste by capturing and recycling residual energy from the acceleration of electrons. The SuperKEKB collides electrons and positrons—the antimatter version of electrons—to search for abnormal physics beyond the standard model.

As of 2023, the world's smallest particle accelerator is smaller than a penny

The prototype is an example of a photonic accelerator, which utilizes tiny lasers to accelerate electrons rather than relying on oscillating electromagnetic fields to move them. It can deliver about 1 electron per second with energies equivalent to those found in cathode-ray tube televisions.

Particle accelerators allow physicists to create controlled nuclear experiments

Before the 1930s, scientists relied on naturally radioactive substances to learn about atomic nuclei. The first atom was split in 1932 when John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton fired a beam of accelerated protons at a lithium atom, producing alpha radiation.

Particle beams can be used to alter the surface properties of artificial joints

Surface hardening and embedding specific elements or coatings can improve the biocompatibility and bone tissue integration of these implants. Particle accelerators are significant sources of the radioisotopes needed in medical diagnostics, and microwave linear accelerators are used in the majority of cancer irradiation treatments.

Particle accelerators have been used to reveal detailed ant anatomy

Using a synchrotron facility at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, a pair of X-ray beams swept across about 2,200 ant specimens to create over 200 terabytes of projection images from multiple angles. The images were compiled into micrometer-resolution 3D reconstructions of 792 species, which are freely accessible on the Antscan platform.

Light can be used to slow the motion of atoms

While photons possess energy, they also have momentum, which allows them to collide with other particles, much like billiard balls, thereby slowing them down and reducing their kinetic energy, or temperature. Using multiple lasers from different directions, particles can be cooled to within one degree of absolute zero.

Leptons do not experience the strong nuclear force that binds quarks together

Particles like electrons can exist in isolation, enabling them to move more freely. Within circuits, this allows electrons to carry energy across wire surfaces quickly. Contrastingly, light created in the sun's core is delayed by a million years on its way to Earth due to collisions with free electrons.

Lichtenberg figures capture lightning-like patterns within insulators

When high-energy electrons from particle accelerators are fired into materials like acrylic, they form a charged plane before discharging into scarred patterns within the material. By evenly charging a cylindrical bottle through rotation during the irradiation process, a 3D figure of lightning in a bottle can be created.

Synchrotron radiation has revealed the fur color of creatures millions of years old

When electrons are accelerated in the loop, they produce intense X-rays that can reveal properties of a sample struck by them, just as X-rays can be used to show bone structure in humans. Studying the reflected light from fossils can uncover the presence of known pigmentation compounds.

Laser technology powers communication, medical and manufacturing tools

Lasers are used when scanning groceries, printing documents or undergoing cosmetic procedures to enhance efficiency, precision and accuracy. Missile defense, targeting and optical communication systems have made using laser technology habitual in the military.

The Louvre in Paris has its own particle accelerator for art analysis

The Accélérateur Grand Louvre d'analyse élémentaire serves as a noninvasive tool for identifying and quantifying trace elements present in artworks by analyzing how particles backscatter off targets. This information can help detect forgeries and determine a piece's provenance. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Solar sails use light as a means of propulsion

Photons possess momentum and can transfer it to objects they strike or bounce off, imparting radiative pressure, or a light-based force over a small surface area. Lasers fired at observational equipment with specially designed sails can theoretically use this mechanism to accelerate up to 20% the speed of light.

X-ray diffraction reveals atomic structures by analyzing how crystals scatter X-rays

X-ray diffraction involves rotating a crystal in an X-ray beam while a detector captures the resulting diffraction patterns, which depend on the crystal’s internal structure. The mathematical principles behind the technique won the 1915 Nobel Prize and improved crystallography.

Gamma Knife surgery uses incredibly precise, high-energy light to treat patients

A form of brain stereotactic radiosurgery, this non-invasive technology concentrates beams of light onto specific tumors to damage the DNA of malignant cells, killing them. The gamma rays used are in the same part of the electromagnetic spectrum as those produced in nuclear reactions, cosmic ray collisions, and radioactive decay.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Microchip fabricators create light by heating tin droplets to over 220,000 Kelvin

Every second, lasers strike 50,000 droplets moving at 250 kilometers (155 miles) per hour, vaporizing the tin in supernova-like miniature explosions that produce ultraviolet light. Knowing this light will spread via diffraction as it passes through a filter during manufacturing, designers reverse-engineer the filter design based on the required final microchip pattern.

Laser-etched electric charges guide toner during laser printing

When sending a print job, the file data generates an image that a laser maps positively charged regions onto a drum separately for each color toner. Once the negatively charged toner is applied where it was electrically attracted, heat and pressure fuse it onto the paper.

What are pulsars?

Pulsars are neutron stars created as part of stellar evolution and emit radiation beams visible from Earth. These beams pulse like a lighthouse's light due to the star's rotation, creating periodic high-energy emissions. Pulsars were first discovered as radio sources; it was also discovered they emit gamma rays. NASA uses its Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to retrieve and analyze data from pulsars.

Ultrasound machines emit and collect high-frequency sound waves to construct images

Before its use in medical imaging, the technology was employed in World War I for submarine detection, the same way bats use sound for echolocation of obstacles. Differences in the penetrating power of different frequencies allow medical professionals to detect different structures in the body.

The speed of electricity may refer to the movement of electrons or energy

In the 18th century, various experiments, including one in which monks holding an iron wire were shocked, suggested that electricity traveled at infinite speed. Advancements in technology, recognizing that electric currents were moving electrons, and the development of the theory of electromagnetism showed that electric signals can travel at near light speed, despite electrons moving much slower.

View the electromagnetic spectrum and the properties of different types of light

All forms of electromagnetic radiation, from radio waves to gamma rays, travel at the speed of light in a vacuum, but their wavelengths decrease as their frequencies increase. The light-sensitive nerve cells in the human eye are sensitive to a narrow range of values, which we observe as the spectrum of visible light.

View the quantum mechanical depiction of electrons as waves around the atomic nucleus

Unlike Bohr's fixed paths, the quantum model describes electrons as exhibiting behavior resembling standing waves—waves that have fixed points at the end while vibrating, like a plucked guitar string. Rather than determining their exact positions, only the probabilities of electrons being in a specific region can be determined.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Fireworks make a loud booming sound after exploding due to air expanding faster than the speed of sound.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time