Issues to consider in the design of Muon (cosmic ray) Detectors

Muon Energy
Muons created by the interaction of cosmic rays and our atmosphere lose their energy gradually by ionisation of the material through which they pass. As they start with high energies they have the capacity to ionise many atoms before their energy is exhausted. Also, as they travel at nearly the speed of light, they tend not to ionise very efficiently and hence can travel through substantial lengths of matter, some metres of lead, before being stopped. Consequently, coincidence detection methods are the only real reliable way to discriminate between terrestrial radiation and cosmic sources.

Penetrative Terrestrial Radiation
I've been very surprised how penetrative local terrestrial radioactive sources can be. For example natural Cobalt-60 gammas can have energies up to 1.3 MeV and so could penetrate upto 10mm of lead. In all detector array designs either Geiger–Müller or Scintillator-Photomultiplier configurations, this can cause a substantial number of false detections. This particularly becomes a problem of detectors with small surface areas (aperture). Consequently, it is recommended that radiation shielding be included in your design to reduce the problem and increase reliability.

Compton Scattering
Compton Scattering is an effect where an interaction between charged electrons within the detector and high energy photons result in the electron being given part of the energy, causing a recoil effect of another high energy photon, which may enter into the adjacent detector causing a false coincidence detection.

In other words placing detectors too close to each other may cause cross-talk interference in coincidence mode, and so radiation shielding should be added or the detectors spaced further apart. However increased spacing also has the negative effect of decreasing the aperture of the detector and so the expected count.

Geiger–Müller Tube Detector Pulse Width
The Geiger–Müller tube is a very good detector of Muons however it would seem that filtering out background radiation using a simple coincidence detector systems alone is problematic due to the Geiger–Müller tube response and decay time (Pulse Width) when a muon has passed through and is detected.

Consequently, the wider the Pulse Width the greater the number of false positives. The means a pulse shorting or quenching circuit is also needed to shorten the Pulse Width to a period closer to the expected flight time of the Muon between tubes, but not too narrow that the electronics cannot measure relative coincidence. Some improvement might also be achieved by spacing the tubes further apart, but this also has the negative effect of decreasing the aperture of the detector.

Detector using Scintillators
As muons travel at nearly the speed of light, they tend not to ionise very efficiently and hence can travel through substantial lengths of matter, some metres of lead, before being stopped. This means that although a Scintillator-Photomultiplier detector has the potential to measure the energy of an ionising particle they can not discern between a muon and any other radiation caused by terrestrial sources and so must be used in a coincidence detection mode.

The major advantage of Scintillator-Photomultiplier detectors over a Geiger–Müller Detector is that a photomultiplier has a very fast response time and so more accurate than Geiger–Müller Detector in coincidence mode. Also as Scintillator panels can be made to have a much larger surface areas means a greater number of muons can be detected compared to other radiation caused by terrestrial sources, further increasing accuracy.

The major disadvantage of Scintillator-Photomultiplier detectors is cost and complexity.

Lead Shielding
Lead plays an important role as a material to shield against environmental radioactivity due to its high density and atomic number together with reasonable mechanical properties and acceptable cost. This role is however hindered by the unavoidable natural presence of Pb-210, which undergoes beta decay, with the consequent emission of gamma radiation.

Again why coincidence detection methods are the only real reliable way to discriminate between terrestrial radiation and cosmic sources.