Tandem Van de Graaff Completed in 1970, the Tandem Van de Graaff facility was for many years the world's largest electrostatic accelerator facility. It can provide researchers with beams of more than 40 different types of ions atoms that have been stripped of their electrons.
Ions ranging from hydrogen to uranium are available.
These may be used independently, or one machine may be used as the injector for the other. The HITL now makes it possible for the Tandem to serve as the Relatavistic Heavy Ion Collider's ions source. One of the new and interesting applications found for the large variety of different beams and energies available at the Tandem is the testing of integrated circuit chips under heavy ion bombardment. By simulating the effects of radiation both in space and on the ground, scientists and engineers from several other laboratories and companies are improving the reliability of computers. NASA used the Tandem in this way to test components of the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft.