How to make a particle accelerator at home? I read about Michio Kaku making an accelerator in his garage while he was in high school. I was learning about the process and how accelerators work. I don't want to use a CRT as a substitute. How can I apply electric and magnetic fields in the required manner? I would appreciate if you explain the whole process thoroughly.
 A: You want to view the old "Amateur Scientist" column of Scientific American. This is a list of the protects - go to page 344[PDF]
It describes how to build an electron beam accelerator using a Van de Graaff generator to create a 250keV beam that can be brought outside of the apparatus into the air
A: Illegal is a sick bird. Anyways the challenges are that you will need to build a leak tight chamber. At higher vacuums, the walls of the chamber leak air into the system. Before the chamber becomes a problem you will find many small holes. There are a few things such as using neoprene for o-rings and for the best o-rings you will need to seal the chamber with soft metal seals such as copper. It is best to avoid plastics and rubbers as both even when fully cured will out-gas air and other gasses.
Next thing is what are you going to use for a vacuum pump. There are a few different kinds it starts with a two stage mechanical pump, then you will need things such as a ion pump, cryopump, or one of the turbo pumps, and so forth. There are three stages in vacuum that will be needed, and that is to have the roughing pump, then a pump before that such as a turbo pump, or diffusion pump, then finely the ion similar pump that goes to high vacuum. BTW I have a cryopump and helium pumps to go with it for the right price. That will pull the gasses out of the chamber down to less than 4 degrees Kelvin. 
Third consideration is what will you be using to accelerate atoms, electrostatic, rf, magnetic? Really the choice comes down to cost to buy or build yourself. Size is part of the things to consider and mechanical strength. As large magnets take lots of power for the coils, power for cooling, and need lots of materials to keep them in the desired shape. 
There is even an article in the 1950's where some junior high and high school students built one in their parents garage. That was an article in Popular Mechanics, and if my father, and other family were more supportive I would have built one a long time ago. However at this point in my life, I have equipment that could be used to build one. I am willing to work with others to build one closer to my home the better, and if someone has some area in a shop near Victorville, California and is interested best is to get in contact with me, as I have repurposed vacuum chambers to do different things. Even make some parts for equipment that is currently in orbit around the planet. I will mention that if you are interested in science and this is going to be used to learn more about the properties of matter, physics and so forth. I want to be a part of it, as there are mention of me in a couple of publications already. The other requirements to get my help are no psychopaths, and that they be either old enough or have supportive parents to work with electronics, radio frequencies, high power electronics and so forth such as over 16 years of age 18 preferably. This is because I want others that are legally and mentally old enough to take responsibility for themselves. Just being over 40 years old is not good enough, as I do not want to deal with children even if they are over 40 (or even retired in 60's or 70's) years old. It is not worth dealing with the problems.
