A compact, high resolution tracker for cosmic ray muon scattering tomography using semiconductor sensors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a compact semiconductor-based muon tracker with high resolution and fast readout, capable of effectively imaging different materials through cosmic ray muon scattering tomography.

Contribution

It presents a novel silicon strip sensor tracker with integrated cooling and FPGA-based electronics, achieving high event rates and accurate material imaging for muon tomography.

Findings

Achieved a scattering angle resolution of 1.5 mrad at 4 GeV muon energy.

Demonstrated effective imaging of plastic, iron, and lead samples.

Compared tracker performance with Geant4 simulations showing good agreement.

Abstract

A semiconductor tracker for muon scattering tomography is presented. The tracker contains silicon strip sensors with an $80\,\mu$m pitch, precision mechanics and integrated cooling. The electronic readout of the sensors is performed by a scalable, inexpensive, flexible, FPGA-based system, which is demonstrated to achieve an event rate of $30\,$kHz. The tracker performance is compared with a Geant4 simulation. A scattering angle resolution compatible with $1.5\,$mrad at the $4\,$GeV average cosmic ray muon energy is demonstrated. Images of plastic, iron and lead samples are obtained using an Angle Statistics Reconstruction algorithm. The images demonstrate good contrast between low and high atomic number materials.