QuarkNetter Reports: The Geiger Detector


Photo courtesy of James A. Petrait
The Geiger detector commercially available from Aware Electronics shows promise for two reasons: The main business at Aware Electronics is Geiger counters. Their RM-60 is a small Geiger counter which connects to a PC for readout. Just about any Wintel machine will do including that old DOS-based 386 you were going to toss. Someone at Aware Electronics got the simple idea that a coincidence circuit (C-box) connected to two RM-60s could be used to detect cosmic rays.

Here's how it works. A cosmic ray muon passes through a Geiger tube in one counter causing a signal to be sent to the C-box. If that same muon passes through the Geiger tube in the other counter, the C-box will get a second signal. The C-box will send a signal to the computer only if it gets both coincident signals in a very short time period, in other words only if a muon passes through both detectors. The computer will record the "hit."



Background radiation is elminated as most background will hit only one counter or the other. On the other hand, cosmic ray muons will hit both counters most often if the counters are stacked vertically.

For the cost of the two RM-60 units (currently $149.50 each) and the C-box ($85.00), Aware Electronics provides all the hookup cables, software and instructions. It is a great way to start in the cosmic ray business.

There are drawbacks.

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RESOURCES AND CONTACTS

To order parts:
Aware Electronics Corp.
P.O. Box 4299, Wilmington, DE 19807 USA


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