Applications of the Strategic Defense Initiative's compact accelerators
Abstract
The Strategic Defense Initiative's (SDI) investment in particle accelerator technology for its directed energy weapons program has produced breakthroughs in the size and power of new accelerators. These accelerators, in turn, have produced spinoffs in several areas: the radio frequency quadrupole linear accelerator (RFQ linac) was recently incorporated into the design of a cancer therapy unit at the Loma Linda University Medical Center, an SDI-sponsored compact induction linear accelerator may replace Cobalt-60 radiation and hazardous ethylene-oxide as a method for sterilizing medical products, and other SDIO-funded accelerators may be used to produce the radioactive isotopes oxygen-15, nitrogen-13, carbon-11, and fluorine-18 for positron emission tomography (PET). Other applications of these accelerators include bomb detection, non-destructive inspection, decomposing toxic substances in contaminated ground water, and eliminating nuclear waste.
- Publication:
-
Technology 2001: The Second National Technology Transfer Conference and Exposition, Volume 2
- Pub Date:
- December 1991
- Bibcode:
- 1991tetr....2..503M
- Keywords:
-
- Cancer;
- Linear Accelerators;
- Quadrupoles;
- Radio Frequencies;
- Sterilization;
- Therapy;
- Weapon Systems;
- Contamination;
- Nondestructive Tests;
- Radioactive Isotopes;
- Tomography;
- Atomic and Molecular Physics