Linear Particle Accelerator - Disadvantages

Disadvantages

• The device length limits the locations where one may be placed.
• A great number of driver devices and their associated power supplies are required, increasing the construction and maintenance expense of this portion.
• If the walls of the accelerating cavities are made of normally conducting material and the accelerating fields are large, the wall resistivity converts electric energy into heat quickly. On the other hand superconductors have various limits and are too expensive for very large accelerators. Therefore, high energy accelerators such as SLAC, still the longest in the world (in its various generations), are run in short pulses, limiting the average current output and forcing the experimental detectors to handle data coming in short bursts.