Abstract
Among the variety of crystal calorimeters recently designed for several physics facilities, CALIFA (CALorimeter for In-Flight emitted gAmmas and light-charged particles) has especially demanding requirements since it must perform within a very complicated energy domain (gamma-ray energies from 0.1 to 20 MeV and up to 300 MeV protons). As part of the R&D program for the Barrel section of CALIFA, a reduced geometry prototype was constructed. This prototype consisted of a 3 × 5 array of CsI(Tl) crystals of varying dimensions, coupled to large area avalanche photodiodes. Here reported are the details regarding the construction of the prototype and the experimental results obtained at the NEPTUN tagged gamma beam facility, reconstructing gamma energies up to 10 MeV. Dedicated Monte Carlo simulations of the setup were also performed, enabling a deeper understanding of the experimental data. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the reconstruction method and helped to establish the most suitable crystal geometry to be employed within the forthcoming calorimeter.