How do you accelerate electrons?

Answer 1

A good way to accelerate electrons is with voltage. The higher the voltage, the more acceleration. Vacuum tubes do this. Like the cathode ray tube (or picture tube) in a conventional television. Electrons stream from the electron guns at the back of the tube to the phosphor coating on the inside of the face of the glass in front. The intervening space is highly evacuated. Electrons scatter terribly when striking anything, even gas atoms in air. We can really accelerate the electrons when we hit them with good ol' high voltage. In an x-ray generating tube the effects are even more dramatic. Amazing what a few extra tens of thousands of volts will do to speed the little guys up across the evacuated space between the elements of the x-ray tube. Oh, but there's a problem. Once speeded up like that, the electrons will eventually slow down by scattering. And when the highly accelerated electrons in the x-ray tube strike the metal target plate, they generate (surprise!) x-rays. And x-rays aren't to be fooled around with. They are penetrating ionizing radiation. There are linear and circular particle accelerators that can ramp up the speed of these little guys much more than can be accomplished in a vacuum tube, but it's hazardous work. More energetic x-rays can be generated by blasting a target in an accelerator with high speed electrons, and shielding in the target buildings of these facilities is yards thick. As an aside, particle accelerators are usually used to speed up protons, antiprotons and heavy ions and slam them around. Particle physics requires more work in those areas. Electron scattering is understood a little better than other aspects of nuclear physics, so there are limits on the amount of research using accelerators to speed up electrons. Think about it this way. An electron is to a proton something like a Table Tennis ball is to a Bowling ball. Which one do you want to slam into stuff to see what happens, hmm?