National Electrostatics

We pride ourselves on producing a wide variety of Pelletron accelerator systems to meet customers' needs. To date we have manufactured over 230 Pelletron systems, with sales in over 50 countries around the world. These systems produce ion beams of essentially all stable nuclei with energies ranging from a few keV to hundreds of MeV. The Pelletron is the world's only commercially available accelerator that incorporates an all metal and ceramic acceleration tube, with no organic material in the vacuum volume. Pelletron systems range in size and configuration from the highly versatile 25 million volt tandem Pelletron at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (the world's highest voltage accelerator) to dedicated analytical instruments using MeV ion beam technology. MeV ion beam instruments are available for standard Rutherford backscattering (RBS) analysis, channeling RBS, particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE), micro PIXE and micro RBS, very high-sensitivity accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), and a wide variety of other materials analysis techniques. The name "Pelletron" is derived from the metal pellet charging chain invented by Dr. Raymond Herb, which still functions as an essential component of Pelletron accelerator technology. Compared to earlier Van de Graaff charging belts, Pelletron charging chains are highly efficient, provide long life, require little maintenance, and provide extremely stable terminal voltage conditions. A wide range of ion sources and beamline components have also been developed with our Pelletron accelerators over the last 50 years. These products have proven to be reliable with extensive use in accelerator systems worldwide.