Lead tungstate scintillator for high energy physics applications

The development of a new scintillator with tight specifications for light yield, decay time and radiation damage, poses challenging problems to be solved by experts working in different fields of material science. This requires a multidisciplinary approach, with a good coordination of efforts and a well organized support. If, in addition, a large production of several cubic meters has to be made in a few years only, additional problems have to be solved, related to production infrastructure, reproducibility of parameters, production yields and cost effectiveness. The example of the development in Russia of lead tungstate crystals for the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter at CERN, Geneva, will be chosen to illustrate this challenging enterprise.