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Cyclotron regulation in North Carolina
Verified August 2026
One entry from the 51-jurisdiction survey, read against a small, fully enclosed, sub-MeV machine whose beam terminates inside its own vacuum chamber.
- Small machine vs. definition
- Ambiguous — Ambiguous — turns on agency reading
The definitional text could plausibly be read either way; the outcome turns on how the agency reads it.
- How North Carolina defines “particle accelerator”
- No accelerator definition — generic radiation-machine rules
- Governing citation
- 10A NCAC 15 .0902 (term undefined after the 2025 readoptions)
- Register / license
- License (accelerators); registration (.0800 RGDs)
- Incidental-radiation exemption
- 10A NCAC 15 .0202(a) — 0.5 rem/yr shielding-removed variant
- Notes (as verified August 2026)
- The 2025 rule readoptions left “particle accelerator” undefined while .0902 flatly licenses accelerators; the .0800 section separately registers radiation-generating devices in the 5 keV–1 MeV band (ion implanters register there in practice) — classification is genuinely ambiguous and turns on a written agency determination.
What to do
Identify the state radiation-control program before the machine is first energized. Ask the program in writing how it classifies the machine before purchasing or building one, rather than relying on a private reading of the definition. Document the machine’s maximum energy and the fact that its beam is internal to the vacuum chamber — that record is what any classification, exemption argument, or registration review turns on.
This is information, not legal advice. Everything on this page was verified against primary sources (statutes, administrative codes, agency publications) as of August 2026. Regulatory text moves — several states recodified or rewrote their radiation rules in 2023–2026 alone — so anything consequential should be re-checked against the current text of the cited provision, and questions about a specific machine belong to the state radiation-control program or qualified counsel.
See the legal overview for the federal layer and how the incidental-radiation exemption is read, and the full 51-jurisdiction table and map for every other state.