Cyclotron Info
On this page

For Researchers & Librarians

This page is the stable reference point for anyone evaluating Cyclotron Info as a source: what the databases are, how they are verified, what they deliberately leave out, and how to cite them. Counts below are computed from the published datasets at every site build.

What this site is

Cyclotron Info is an independent, hand-curated reference on cyclotrons. Its core databases:

  • The amateur builds census: 27 documented amateur-, school-, and laboratory-built machines from 1947 to the present, successful and stalled alike, cited to the builders’ own publications.
  • The Design Guide: 1,878 design rules extracted from the accelerator literature, each carrying its verbatim source quote and page citation, and the annotated bibliography of 283 documents behind them, with public-domain classics hosted in full under written rights rationales.

The design rules and the bibliography are downloadable as JSON from the data page under CC BY 4.0. The site’s worldwide installation directory is temporarily unpublished while the way it is offered is reworked; the dataset behind it continues to be maintained, and research access can be requested at [email protected].

The evidence bar

Every census entry carries its own sources, and installation records in the maintained dataset carry last-verified dates, with verification run against primary material — facility websites, operator publications, and national regulators and registries. Design rules are quoted verbatim with page citations, so any rule can be checked against its source directly. Nuclear data on reference pages is retrieved from NNDC and NIST at writing time and cited with its retrieval date. Cited external sources are submitted to the Internet Archive on a monthly cycle, and where a snapshot is verified, an archived-copy link renders beside the citation. Corrections are made in place with dated notes, recorded in the changelog, never applied silently. The full production and review process, including the site’s AI-assistance disclosure, is documented in the editorial methodology.

Scope and deliberate exclusions

  • Cyclotrons only. Synchrotrons, linacs, and other accelerator families are out of scope; the site links outward to their communities instead.
  • Documented coverage, not claimed completeness. The site records machines that public sources document. Sources announce new installations far more reliably than shutdowns, so status data lags reality in that direction; last-verified dates exist to make that visible.
  • Builder privacy. Amateur machines in private homes are located at city level only, and only with the builders’ consent or where they have published their location themselves; otherwise the location is recorded as withheld.
  • The builds census admits documented builds. A factory-made machine donated to a school is not a build, the same boundary that keeps hospital machines out of the census.
  • No copyrighted hosting, no legal advice. Documents are hosted only with a written public-domain rationale on the document’s page, and the legal survey is descriptive information about cited regulations, dated per jurisdiction.

How to cite

The site is published under its institutional name and has no individual author to credit; cite it as an organization. Content is revised continuously, so include the date you accessed it. Suggested forms:

  • The site: Cyclotron Info. cyclotroninfo.com. Accessed [date].
  • A page: Cyclotron Info. “Amateur Builds Census.” cyclotroninfo.com/builds/. Accessed [date]. Every reference page carries its own last-reviewed date in the provenance strip at the bottom; citing that date alongside the accessed date pins the version you read.
  • A dataset: Cyclotron Info. Design Guide rules [dataset]. cyclotroninfo.com/data/design-rules.json. CC BY 4.0. Accessed [date]. Each JSON export carries a _meta block with its license, provenance note, and export date. A BibTeX export of the bibliography is available on the library page.

Linking and stability

URLs are stable, and heading anchors are kept stable deliberately (the site’s own search deep-links depend on them), so section-level links are safe for subject guides and course pages. When a page has moved, a redirect is left behind. Rule identifiers in the Design Guide (dg- numbers) are frozen permalinks, and its ?domain= and ?level= filters are stable deep links.

Corrections

Corrections, additions, and documents are welcome at [email protected]; the contact page lists what is most useful to send. Corrections from facility operators and manufacturers about their own machines are treated as authoritative over secondary sources. Substantive corrections are recorded in the changelog.