Performance of irradiated and nonirradiated 500-/spl mu/m-thick silicon microstrip detectors

The decision taken by the CMS experiment to build a tracker entirely based on silicon detectors has made necessary the use of thicker sensors instead of the usual 300-/spl mu/m sensors for the outer part of the detector. We first present results on the performance of 500-/spl mu/m-thick detectors, before and after neutron irradiation, bonded to the CMS tracker front-end electronics. Laboratory measurements show that the total collected charge scales linearly with thickness when compared with a 300-/spl mu/m module, and the measured noise is in good agreement with expectations. The results obtained confirm the feasibility of large-area silicon trackers.