science · 10 May 1979 · 45 years ago
In 1979, a potential difference of 32.0 million volts, the highest ever generated, was produced by the National Electrostatics Corporation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Tennessee. Company personnel were testing the newly installed Pelletron accelerator model 25 URC, the largest manufacturered by the company. (The sustained terminal voltage was measured by the current measurement of the column corona voltage grading system to within an uncertainty of +/-5% or +/- 1.5 MV). On 7 May 1979, voltage tests had been conducted on the column structure prior to installation of the acceleration tubes. This 25 MV electrostatic tandem accelerator remains in use at ORNL producing radioactive ion beams for research.
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