(277) High Voltage

The Cockcroft–Walton (CW) generator, or multiplier, is an electric circuit that generates a high DC voltage from a low-voltage AC or pulsing DC input. It was named after the British and Irish physicists John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton, who in 1932 used this circuit design to power their particle accelerator, performing the first artificial nuclear disintegration in history. This example was used as part of an accelerator at the University of Edinburgh for nuclear physics research from the 1950s and is now on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.