Large size LYSO crystals for future high energy physics experiments

Because of high stopping power and fast bright scintillation, cerium doped silicate based heavy crystal scintillators, such as GSO, LSO and LYSO, have been developed for medical instruments. Their application in high energy and nuclear physics, however, is limited by lacking high quality crystals in large size. The optical and scintillation properties, including the transmittance, emission and excitation spectra and the light output, decay kinetics and light response uniformity as well as their degradation under irradiation, were measured for large size LYSO samples from different vendors, and were compared to a BGO sample of the same size. Possible applications for crystal calorimetry in future high energy and nuclear physics experiments are discussed.