Characteristics and Applications of Radiation from Channeled Particles

Charged particles channeled in crystals traverse nearly periodic trajectories, which produce radiation that has spectral peaks at photon energies determined by the particle energy and the periodicity of the motion. This effect is analogous to the radiation enhancement that occurs when a magnetic undulator is placed in a storage ring. For γ=10 to 100, the period of the motion is several hundred to several thousand lattice sites in the crystal, so that the forward. directed emission is in the soft-to-hard x-ray portion of the spectrum. Channeling radiation can be used to study the channeling phenomenon, to investigate the properties of crystals in which channeling occurs, and as a source of x-rays.