The FOCAL spectrometer for accurate X-ray spectroscopy of fast heavy ions

A system of two crystal spectrometers for accurate wavelength measurements of hard X-rays emitted by heavy ions in flight is presently being completed. The configuration is working in the focusing compensated asymmetric laue (FOCAL) mode along with high performance two-dimensional position sensitive micro-strip Ge detectors. Recent tests of the spectrometer have been performed securing quantitatively spectral resolving power and efficiency predicted by numerical simulations. For the proposed application, nearly perfect Silicon single crystals need to be bent cylindrically using a precision crystal-bending device, close to the limit where they start to break.