The science behind our muon tomography technology

Muon flux

Muons (μ) are subatomic particles born when cosmic rays hit Earth’s atmosphere. Muons are similar to electrons - they have the same electric charge (-1), but are heavier than electrons.

Flux is flow. Muon flux makes up half of all natural radiation at around 10 000/min per m².

The principles of the method

Measure the natural atmospheric flux of muons, electrons, and positrons before they encounter an object of interest.
These particles travel through the object, with their trajectories changed or blocked by what’s inside - particles are scattered.
Measure the particle flux again as the particles exit. Registered scattering angle (Δθ) will be used for material classification.
AI visualises the object in 3D and identifies its composition – each material, compound and shape have a specific effect on particles, based on their atomic number and spatial position.

Why is muon flux a better method?

GScan is using naturally occurring cosmic-ray induced muons, electrons and positrons as the source for performing 3D scanning and chemical composition analysis. Utilising a natural source makes every GScan system radiation safe - no harm to the surrounding people nor the environment itself. Our solutions are modular and highly-scalable, using the in-house developed 1m x 2m detector array modules.

GScan’s MFT (Muon Flux Technology) modules are tracking the particles with a world-leading 100 micrometre spatial and 1 milliradian angular accuracy, ensuring that no threat goes undetected. Due to the nature of muons, the system can see through every material up to 20 metres in thickness, whilst achieving unrivalled spatial and chemical resolution. Having focused on the scalability, reliability and a small carbon footprint throughout the development, GScan’s systems have no moving parts, are energy efficient and produce no hazardous waste throughout their lifespan, nor after it - ensuring that we are all taking leaps towards a cleaner, safer and more sustainable future.

Patents and articles

White paper: Atmospheric ray tomography for low-Z materials

Implementing new methods on a proof-of-concept tomograph.

Patent EU60218

GScan systems are able to automatically identify common threat and illegal materials as well detect any radiological or nuclear materials. This capability is based on using high accuracy sensors for particle tracking in combination with, beyond state-of-the art tomographic reconstruction and material classification algorithms.

During the EU60218 project, international patent application no. PCT / EP2019 / 055333 was submitted in EU, USA, China and Japan. The project was implemented: 21.07.2020 – 20.01.2022.

GScan technology was developed with the financial support by Enterprise Estonia. The Eliko Competence Centre project (EU48693) runs between 01.07.2015-30.06.2022.

Other research papers and conference proceedings

The GScan team has released a diverse range of research papers, all accessible to readers.