M. Caccia

The ATLAS Silicon Pixel Sensors

Prototype sensors for the ATLAS silicon pixel detector have been developed. The design of the sensors is guided by the need to operate them in the severe LHC radiation environment at up to several hundred volts while maintaining a good signal-to-noise ratio, small cell size, and minimal multiple scattering. The ability to be operated under full bias for electrical characterization prior to attachment of the readout integrated circuit electronics is also desired.

The DELPHI Microvertex detector

The DELPHI Microvertex detector, which has been in operation since the start of the 1990 LEP run, consists of three layers of silicon microstrip detectors at average radii of 6.3, 9.0 and 11.0 cm. The 73728 readout strips, oriented along the beam, have a total active area of 0.42 m2. The strip pitch is 25 μm and every other strip is read out by low power charge amplifiers, giving a signal to noise ratio of 15:1 for minimum ionizing particles. On-line zero suppression results in an average data size of 4 kbyte for Z0 events. After a mechanical survey and an alignment with tracks, the impact parameter uncertainty as determined from hadronic Z0 decays is well described by (69pt)2 + 242 μm, with pt in GeV/c. For the 45 GeV/c tracks from Z0 → μ− decays we find an uncertainty of 21 μm for the impact parameter, which corresponds to a precision of 8 μm per point. The stability during the run is monitored using light spots and capacitive probes. An analysis of tracks through sector overlaps provides an additional check of the stability. The same analysis also results in a value of 6 μm for the intrinsic precision of the detector.

A Si strip detector with integrated coupling capacitors

Abstract A silicon microstrip detector with capacitive coupling of the diode strips to the metallization and with individual polysilicon resistors to each diode has been developed. The detector was tested in a minimum ionizing particle beam showing a performance similar to conventional strip detectors and a spatial resolution of 3.5 μm. Capacitive coupling allows the decoupling of the leakage current from the input to the charge sensitive preamplifier especially in the case of LSI electronics.

The DELPHI silicon strip microvertex detector with double sided readout

The silicon strip microvertex detector of the DELPHI experiment at the CERN LEP collider has been recently upgraded from two coordinates (RΦ only) to three coordinates reconstruction (RΦ and z). The new Microvertex detector consists of 125 952 readout channels, and uses novel techniques to obtain the third coordinate. These include the use of AC coupled double sided silicon detectors with strips orthogonal to each other on opposite sides of the detector wafer. The routing of signals from the z strips to the end of the detector modules is done with a second metal layer on the detector surface, thus keeping the material in the sensitive area to a minimum. Pairs of wafers are daisy chained, with the wafers within each pair flipped with respect to each other in order to minimize the load capacitance on the readout amplifiers. The design of the detector and its various components are described. Results on the performance of the new detector are presented, with special emphasis on alignment, intrinsic precision and impact parameter resolution. The new detector has been taking data since spring of 1994, performing up to design specifications.

Photon-number statistics with Silicon photomultipliers

We present a description of the operation of a multi-pixel detector in the presence of non-negligible dark-count and cross-talk effects. We apply the model to devise self-consistent calibration strategies to be performed on the very light under investigation.

A measurement of Lorentz angle and spatial resolution of radiation hard silicon pixel sensors

Silicon pixel sensors developed by the ATLAS collaboration to meet LHC requirements and to withstand hadronic irradiation to fluences of up to

Beam test results from a prototype for the delphi microvertex detector

10^{15} n_eq/cm^{2}

The DELPHI pixels

have been evaluated using a test beam facility at CERN providing a magnetic field. The Lorentz angle was measured and found to alter from 9.0 deg. before irradiation, when the detectors operated at 150 V bias at B=1.48 T, to 3.1 deg after irradiation and operating at 600 V bias at 1.01 T. In addition to the effect due to magnetic field variation, this change is explained by the variation of the electric field inside the detectors arising from the different bias conditions. The depletion depths of irradiated sensors at various bias voltages were also measured. At 600 V bias 280 micron thick sensors depleted to ~200 micron after irradiation at the design fluence of 1 10^{15} 1 MeV n_eq/cm2 and were almost fully depleted at a fluence of 0.5 * 10^{15} 1 MeV n_eq/cm2. The spatial resolution was measured for angles of incidence between 0 deg and 30 deg. The optimal value was found to be better than 5.3 micron before irradiation and 7.4 micron after irradiation.

Electrical characteristics of silicon pixel detectors

Abstract Results are presented from a test in the CERN SPS North Area of a prototype of the DELPHI microvertex detector. Full-sized modules built up from prototype ac-coupled detectors and VLSI readout electronics were used. The spatial resolution of the detectors equipped with prototype VLSI chips was measured to be 6.5 μm. The system aspects, including the readout, were found to work well. Extrapolating to the final components we expect to achieve a measurement precision of 5 μm with the DELPHI microvertex detector.

Hybrid active pixel sensors and SOI inspired option

Abstract To improve tracking in the very forward direction for running at LEP200, the angular acceptance of the DELPHI Vertex detector has been extended from 45° to 11° with respect to the beam axis. Pixel detector crowns cover the region between 25° and 13°. Due to very tight space and material thickness constraints it was necessary to develop new techniques (integrated busses in the detector substrate, high density layout on Kapton, etc.). About 1000 cm 2 of pixels are already installed and working in DELPHI. Techniques, tests and production of these detectors will be described, as well as the main problems encountered during this work.