System Test Measurements with a DC-DC Conversion Powering Scheme for the CMS Tracker at SLHC

A potential luminosity upgrade of the LHC, the so-called SLHC implies challenging upgrades for the experiments at the LHC. Concerning the upgrade of the CMS silicon strip tracker, the delivery of power isconsidered to be one of the major challenges. The higher instantaneous luminosity makes an increase ingranularity and complexity of the device inevitable. Both are expected to result in a power consumptioncomparable or even higher than the power consumption of today’s strip tracker. However, the space availablefor cables will remain the same. In addition, a further increase of the tracker material budget due to cablesand cooling is considered unacceptable, as the performance of the CMS detector must not be compromisedfor the upgrade. Novel powering schemes such as serial powering or the usage of DC-DC converters havebeen proposed to solve the problem. To test the second option, substructures of the current CMS siliconstrip tracker have been operated for the first time with off-the-shelf DC-DC buck converters. This thesisdescribes the tests and discusses the results.