Quartz fibers as active elements in detectors for particle physics

Quartz fibers were first applied in particle physics experiments for detectors that operated at extremely high radiation levels. The superior radiation hardness of high-purity quartz was the driving consideration at that time. However, it turned out that these fibers have many other interesting and beneficial aspects, which derive from the fact that the Čerenkov effect forms the basis of the signals in quartz-based detectors. These aspects are reviewed in this paper. We also discuss some details of the radiation damage characteristics of quartz.