Lead tungstate crystals for the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter at the LHC

With its over 80,000 scintillating lead tungstate PbWO/sub 4/ (PWO) crystals the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) will be the largest one ever constructed. It was designed to work in the demanding LHC environment and give a resolution of 0.5% for photon energies above 50 GeV/c. An important R & D effort was necessary in order to guarantee the production of PWO crystals able to satisfy such challenging constraints. The performance of the pre-production crystal batches (about 6000 barrel crystals) is consistent with the very strict quality parameters defined by the ECAL Collaboration. The meaning of quality controls as well as the main characteristics of these crystals are discussed. More, recent developments in the PWO crystal growth technology may speedup the crystal supplying for the ECAL construction. (15 refs).