Present Trends In The Configurations And Applications Of Electrostatic Accelerator Systems

Despite the worldwide economic meltdown during the past two years and preceding any stimulus program projects, the market for electrostatic accelerators has increased on three fronts: new applications developed in an expanding range of fields; technical enhancements that increase the range, precision, and sensitivity of existing systems; and new accelerator projects in a growing number of developing countries. From the single application of basic nuclear structure research from the 1930's into the 1970's, the continued expansion of new applications and the technical improvements in electrostatic accelerators have dramatically affected the configurations and capabilities of accelerator systems to meet new requirements. This paper describes examples of recent developments in cosmology, exotic materials, high resolution RBS, compact AMS, dust acceleration, ion implantation, etc.