  Crystal damage events such as tracks and point defects have been used to
record and detect radiation for a long time and recently they have been
proposed as a means for dark matter detection. Color centers can be read out
optically and we propose a scheme based on selective plane illumination
microscopy for sub-micron imaging of large volumes corresponding to kilogram
mass detectors. This class of detectors would be passive and would operate at
room temperature. We apply these concepts to the detection of reactor neutrinos
using coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CEvNS). Crystal damage
formation energies are intrinsically on the order of 25eV, resulting in
similarly low nuclear recoil thresholds. This would enable the first
observation of reactor neutrino CEvNS with detectors as small as 10g.
Additionally, a competitive search for spin-dependent dark matter scattering
down to a dark matter mass of 0.3GeV could be possible. Passive crystal
detectors might also be attractive for nuclear non-proliferation safeguards if
used to monitor reactor power and to put limits on plutonium production. The
passive nature and small footprint of the proposed detectors implies that these
might fit well within accepted reactor safeguards operations.
