Definition of "cyclotron" [cyclotron]

• A circular particle accelerator in which charged subatomic particles generated at a central source are accelerated spirally outward in a plane perpendicular to a fixed magnetic field by an alternating electric field. A cyclotron is capable of generating particle energies between a few million and several tens of millions of electron volts. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A variant of the cyclotron is the microtron in which electrons are accelerated at one gap at the periphery of the orbits."
• "A cyclotron is not useful for acceleration of electrons since their rotation frequency in a magnetic field slows down quite rapidly even for as low energies as a few MeV due to the small rest mass of an electron."
• "African cyclotron, is to a great extent used for medical applications."