The golden age of crystals: electromagnetic interactions in crystalline matter and their technological implications for HEP

by Mattia Soldani (INFN e Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (IT))

Monday 17 Mar 2025, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

BSP 626 / Zoom

We are in the golden age of crystals. In fact, albeit long overlooked, the way in which particles behave when crossing crystalline matter has been acknowledged as a nontrivial and fascinating study subject in the last decades. In particular, the electromagnetic interactions of the charged particles and photons that impinge on a crystal nearly aligned to certain specific directions of its lattice structure undergo substantial modifications with respect to the phenomena that commonly occur in amorphous media. Depending on the energy scale and on the type of particles involved, a multitude of characteristic effects can occur.

Nowadays, oriented crystals are becoming ubiquitous in particle physics, owing to their significant potential for technological applications. For instance, bent crystals with the same steering radius as magnetic fields of thousands of tesla are used for beam collimation and extraction and for the high-precision measurement of the electric dipole moment of short-lived hadrons. Heavy metals in crystalline form are used as high-performance radiators and photon converters. Currently, investigations are being performed on the influence of the lattice orientation on the performance of crystal electromagnetic calorimeters. These studies could also pave the way to the development of innovative particle detectors with appealing features for next-generation accelerator-based experiments and satellite-borne gamma ray observatories.

25_03_17_goldenAgeCrystals_soldani.pdf