Research and development of particle detectors for muon tomography and the CERN ALICE experiment

The Standard Model of particle physics describes successfully the building blocks of the material and their interactions, which are confirmed by most of the experimental observations. However, there are several open questions, e. g. how the Universe was created or where the missing antimatter is? We can answer these questions by new or upgraded experiments. In these experiments, we apply particle detectors to measure the particles originated from colliders or high-energy cosmic rays. This Ph.D. thesis focuses mainly on the research and development of particle detectors. The ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), investigates the quark gluon plasma (QGP), which is produced in heavy-ion collisions. ALICE has a complex apparatus consists of tracking, identification and calorimeter detectors. To measure more precisely the properties of QPG, the increase of energy and luminosity of collisions is necessary. This implies the better understanding of the operation of subdetectors of ALICE and their upgrades. The development of the instrumentation and the methods of particle physics led to the appearance of new applications. The muon radiography or muon tomography is an imaging method which is based on cosmic muon tracking. This is applicable to image largesize and high-density bjects. With an appropriate instrument, we can measure the change of the density in volcanoes in real time and predict even their eruptions. If the imaging of low-Z materials can be realised, that led to a non-invasive medical imaging procedure.