Crystal Deflectors for High Energy Ion Beams

The motion of charged particles entering a crystal at small angles with respect to a crystalline plane is strongly influenced by the average electric field of the ordered nuclei. For sufficiently small angles the particles can be captured in channeling states, thus performing quasi-harmonic oscillations in the potential well between the crystal planes. Channeled particles in a bent crystal are deflected along the bent planes of the crystal. This provides a powerful method to steer and control particle trajectories that has been investigated and occasionally exploited for some decades already.