Design, characterization and beam test performance of different silicon microstrip detector geometries

During the last few years a large number of silicon microstrip detectors ha s been especially designed and tested in order to study and optimize the pe rformances of the tracking devices to be used in the forward-backward part of the CMS (Technical proposal, CERN/LHCC 94-38 LHCC/P1, 15 December 1994) experiment. Both single and double sided silicon detectors of a trapezoidal ("wedge") s hape and with different strip configurations, including prototypes produced with double metal technology, were characterized in the laboratory and tes ted using high-energy beams. Furthermore, due to the high-radiation environment where the detectors shou ld operate, particular care was devoted to the study of the characteristics of heavily irradiated detectors. The main results of detector performances (charge response, signal-to-noise ratio, spatial resolution etc.) will be reviewed and discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.