Development of Scintillator-Based Muon Detectors for Muography

International audienceIn this chapter, we describe basic features and give some current applications of the most popular detection technology used in muography: the scintillator-based muon detectors, widely used not only in volcanology, where their properties find natural applications, but also in geosciences, archeology, non-invasive industrial control, civil engineering, homeland security, nuclear non-proliferation and more. As we will emphasize in the following sections, there are many advantages in the use of scintillators, which are known to be robust – and therefore usable in harsh environmental conditions – and offer real-time analogic measurement capabilities with a good space and time resolution. The design of such detectors is flexible and may be used in many different ways depending on the target under study, the field conditions, the modularity of the detectors etc. Throughout this chapter, we will focus on one particular muon detector (also referred to as “muon telescope”) originally designed to study the active volcanic dome of the Soufrière of Guadeloupe to show the generic features of this detection technique