何为原子？

Rutherford's discovery led to the development of the first particle accelerator, initially referred to as an 'atom smasher'. This powerful machine could accelerate charged particles using an electrical field to high energies along a path and used strong magnets to create beams of single charged particles. When the fast-moving particles hit the target (they could go almost as fast as the speed of light), the atoms in the target split apart.

Read more: What are particle accelerators?

Particle accelerators also can be used to create radioactive material by shooting charged particles at atoms to change them into different, unstable atoms, such as technetium-99m for medical imaging and radioisotopes for targeted cancer therapy.

Read more about radioisotopes here.

Today, particle accelerators are also used to sterilize medical equipment, research the origins of the universe (for example, at the Large Hadron Collider), as well as to analyse air samples and to enhance materials and make them more resistant to damage. Different types of particle accelerators include ion implanters, electron beam accelerators, cyclotrons, synchrotrons, linear accelerators (Linacs) and electrostatic accelerators.