Equipment and methods for rapid analysis of PWO full-sized scintillation crystal radiation hardness during mass production

This year an extensive R&D on lead tungstate crystals has entered into the pre-production phase at the Bogoroditsk Techno-Chemical Plant (BTCP). Laboratory small-scale PWO crystal growth technology, which has been tuned and optimised over the last years, is transforming now into an industrial technology of mass production. This mass production technology is based on a set of methods and instrumentation for crystal growth, machining, crystal quality control and certification. According to the specification on lead tungstate pre-production crystals, one of the most important categories of tolerance is the radiation hardness. Control of the PWO radiation hardness at the pre-production phase requires reliability and an easy to use measuring tool with a high productivity. A semi-automatic spectrometric setup for PWO radiation hardness monitoring has been developed and tested at the X5 CERN irradiation facility. After final crosschecks the setup was set into operation at the BTCP. Together with several other methods this setup covers a full range of radiation damage phenomena in PWO crystals.