This kit contains everything required to build a working muon detector. As supplied the detector will detect β, ϒ, and cosmic muons. To eliminate the random β and ϒ two detectors are required working in coincidence mode.
The kit is partly assembled, only the through hole components and a single surface mount component, the Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM), require soldering.
The detector element is a scintillator with a silicon photomultiplier optically coupled to the BC-408 scintillator material using the supplied optical coupling grease. The scintillator is supplied polished and drilled ready for assembly.
There are three printed circuit boards: SiPM, SD card reader and mother board. An Ardunio Nano is supplied as the Analogue to Digital converter and serves to display the count rate, save the counts to the SD card as a CSV file and communicate with its host via USB. The detector is powered by a USB-mini connector.
Cables are not included. The detector requires a USB cable (type-A to mini-USB) for power and data and a stereo cable (3.5mm to 3.5mm jack plug) for coincident operation.
There is extensive documentation; scientific and construction detail available as a download and a series of YouTube videos explaining the construction process in detail. These are available via the Cosmic Watch website http://www.cosmicwatch.lns.mit.edu/
For ongoing support there is a forum - https://groups.io/g/muondetector/messages where discussion, questions and ideas can be shared.
Revised 19th November 2024.