Radioactive rays are alpha rays (alpha particles), beta rays (beta particles) and gamma rays (photons) released in the process of nuclear decay, and x rays released by electron transition in the atomic shell.
In geological work, the composition and content of radioactive or radioisotopes in rocks and ores are determined by measuring the energy and irradiation rate of some rays. For example, gamma measurement is to find radioactive mineral deposits such as uranium and thorium by measuring the exposure rate of gamma rays and solve related problems.
When radioactive elements decay, they will emit three kinds of rays: α-ray, β-ray and γ-ray, and the penetrating power is arranged in order of γ-ray, β-ray and α-ray from strong to weak.
The intensity of natural radiation source of extended data is generally low, so it is difficult to adjust as needed, which can not meet the needs of scientific and technological work well. Therefore, people have explored a high-intensity, high-energy, good-performance and easy-to-control radiation source, and developed various particle accelerators.
We know that many particles, such as electrons, protons, alpha particles and so on, are charged, and they can be accelerated in the electromagnetic field to obtain high energy. This kind of machine which can accelerate charged particles and obtain high energy under the action of electromagnetic field is a particle accelerator.
There are many kinds of particle accelerators. According to the final available energy of particles, there are low energy, medium energy and high energy particle accelerators; According to the trajectory of charged particles, there are linear, circular and spiral; According to the classification of accelerator electric field, there are DC high-voltage electric field acceleration, high-frequency resonance electric field acceleration and induced electric field acceleration caused by magnetic field change.
According to the types of accelerated charged particles, there are electron, proton, deuterium and various heavy element ion accelerators.
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