Study of Silicon Microstrip Detector Properties for the LHCb Silicon Tracker

The LHCb experiment, at present under construction at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, has been designed to perform high-precision measurements of CP violating phenomena and rare decays in the B meson systems. The need of a good tracking performance and the high density of particles close to the beam pipe lead to the use of silicon microstrip detectors in a significant part of the LHCb tracking system. The Silicon Tracker (ST) will be built using p-on-n silicon detectors with strip pitches of approximately 200 $\mu$m and readout strips up to 38 cm in length. This thesis describes the tests carried out on silicon microstrip detectors for the ST, starting from the characterization of different prototypes up to the final tests on the detectors that are being installed at CERN. The results can be divided in three main blocks. The first part comprises an exhaustive characterization of several prototype sensors selected as suitable candidates for the detector and was performed in order to decide some design parameters of the sensors, such as thickness or strip geometry, that fit best with the experiment requirements. This has been achieved through electrical characterizations, mechanical and thermal measurements, laboratory tests of the performance of modules and test-beam measurements at CERN. The second part consists of an irradiation study on prototype sensors and modules, carried out in order to check that their performance will not be dramatically affected by the hard irradiation they will suffer during the 10 years of LHCb operation. The third part presents the sensor quality assurance procedures followed by the ST group to verify the characteristics of the sensors prior to their final installation in the detector, and their application to the first batches of sensors from the main production.