Characterization of the Li2WO4 crystal as a cryogenic scintillating calorimeter

Helis D.L. Melchiorre A. Nagorny S. Noia M. Pagnanini L. Pirro S. Puiu A. Benato G. Carniti P. Elleboro R. Gambacorta P. Gotti C. Grigorieva V.D. Nisi S. Olivieri E. Pessina G. Piacentini S. Shafiee M. Shlegel V.N.
February 2026 Springer Nature

European Physical Journal C
2026 #86 Issue 2

A wide range of scintillating bolometers are under investigation for applications in the search for rare events and processes beyond the Standard Model. In this work, we report the first measurement of a natural, non-molybdenum-doped, lithium tungstate (Li2WO4) crystal operated underground as a scintillating cryogenic calorimeter. The detector achieved a baseline energy resolution of 0.5 keV RMS with a low-energy threshold of about 1.5 keV. The simultaneous readout of heat and light enabled particle identification, revealing a clear separation between β/γ,α, and nuclear recoil populations above 300 keV, with a light-yield-based particle discrimination better than 6σ. These results, fully comparable with those achieved with other compounds in the field, demonstrate that Li2WO4 is a promising candidate for rare-event searches. In particular, the combination of excellent radio-purity (with U/Th levels below 0.5 mBq/kg) and sensitivity to neutron interactions via the 6Li(n,α)3H reaction makes this material an attractive option for next-generation experiments in dark matter, coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, and spin-dependent interactions.

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INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, L’Aquila, Assergi, 67100, Italy
Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche e Chimiche, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, L’Aquila, 67100, Italy
Gran Sasso Science Institute, L’Aquila, 67100, Italy
INFN-Sezione di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, 20126, Italy
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, 20126, Italy
Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, SB RAS, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS/IN2P3, IJCLab, Orsay, 91405, France
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Nazarbayev University, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan
Physik-Institut, University of Zürich, Zurich, 8057, Switzerland

INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso
Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche e Chimiche
Gran Sasso Science Institute
INFN-Sezione di Milano-Bicocca
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry
Université Paris-Saclay
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Physik-Institut

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