Development of the technology for large-scale production of lead tungstate single crystals for physical experiments

The scientific principles underlying the technology for growing crystals of lead tungstate PbWO4 (PWO) with controlled properties are discussed. The developed technology is implemented at the North Crystals Company in mass production of PWO crystals with 100% reproducibility of operating parameters. This made it possible to solve the problem associated with the preparation of PWO crystals for the ALICE experiment at CERN and to produce the pilot batch of large-sized PWO crystals (diameter, 46 mm; length, 250 mm) with required characteristics for the CMS experiment at CERN. More than 10000 PWO scintillators of high optical quality for the ALICE experiment were fabricated over a short time according to the proposed technique.