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 $9 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, $9 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, $9 Geneva, will be chosen to illustrate this challenging enterprise. (10 refs).