drift tube

American  

noun

Radio.

1. a conducting enclosure, usually cylindrical, held at a constant potential so that electrons or charged particles within will experience no force, and therefore no change in velocity.

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drift tube British  

noun

1. physics a hollow cylindrical electrode to which a radio-frequency voltage is applied in a linear accelerator

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Example Sentences

In a drift tube an electric field is then applied to guide the primary ions to the sample flow where they react with the neutral molecules and clusters with an overall reaction time of about 200 ms in one instrument and 50 ms in the other.

From Nature

Inside the drift tube, two possible reactions can then take place to ionize the neutral molecules or clusters A in the sample flow:

From Nature

“Night after night for weeks on end, like a test pilot learning to fly a new plane,” he recalled, “I sat at the control panel gradually running the drift tube voltage up to the point where the tank would spark.”

From Literature