an apparatus for accelerating electrons to very high velocities by means of a periodic magnetic field, thus producing "artificial" beta rays

a particle accelerator in the cyclotron family

A machine in which electrons are accelerated in a circular orbit before being deflected onto a target to produce high energy X-rays. This type of equipment usually operates at energies between 10 and 31 MEV.

A betatron is a particle accelerator developed by Donald Kerst at the University of Illinois in 1940 to accelerate electrons. The betatron is essentially a transformer with a torus-shaped vacuum tube as its secondary coil. An alternating current in the primary coils accelerates electrons in the vacuum around a circular path.