Charged particle detection using storage phosphor crystals

We propose a detector of charged particles based on photostimulated luminescence (PSL) of single crystals. Such a detector potentially allows for the high space resolution (tens of microns) over a large area and excellent pattern recognition (it is non-projective). Potentially it is competitive to the existing detectors both in price and performance. Detector may be used in neutrino or other low-rate experiments. We demonstrate detection of alpha-particles with the average signal of 220 photoelectrons and estimate the minimum-ionizing particle to yield 50 photoelectrons per mm of track. The noise level of 15 photoelectrons RMS is limited by technical issues and there is a clear perspective to reduce it greatly.