Proposal for a Laue lens with quasi-mosaic crystalline tiles

Quasi-mosaicity is an effect of secondary bending within a crystal driven by crystalline anisotropy. This effect can be used to fabricate a series of curved crystals for the realization of a Laue lens. It is highlighted that crystals bent by the quasi-mosaic effect allow very high resolution focusing with respect to mosaic crystals. Under the same conditions for energy passband, crystal size and flux of incident photons, a Laue lens based on quasi-mosaic crystals would increase the signal-to-noise ratio by about an order of magnitude compared to the same lens with mosaic crystals. Moreover, no mosaic defocusing occurs for quasi-mosaic crystals. © 2011 International Union of Crystallography Printed in Singapore-all rights reserved.