Channeling crystals for positron production

Particles traversing at small angles along a single crystal axis experience a collective scattering force of many crystal atoms. The enormous fields can trap the particles along an axis or plane, called channeling. High energy electrons are attracted by the positive nuclei and therefore produce strongly enhanced so called coherent bremsstrahlung and pair production. These effects could be used in a positron production target: A single tungsten crystal is oriented to the incident electron beam within 1 mrad. At 28 GeV/c the effective radiation length is with 0.9 mm about one quarter of the amorphous material. So the target length can be shorter, which yields a higher conversion coefficient and a lower emittance of the positron beam. This makes single crystals very interesting for positron production targets. 18 refs., 2 figs