Performance of a thick silicon polarimeter

We have constructed and tested gamma-ray polarimeters from layers of 2 mm thick double-sided silicon strip detectors. The first test polarimeter consists of 2 layers of 64times64 strip detectors with a 0.891 mm strip pitch. The device was tested using 122 keV gamma-rays polarized by Compton scattering near 90deg in a 30times5 strip silicon detector. Data from a higher-energy experiment using gamma-rays from a
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Co source scattered by a 3.5 cm times 5 cm times 1 cm lead block and a single 64times64 strip Si detector was taken to test higher-energy polarimetry and allow direct background measurement. A detailed GEANT4 simulation for the low-energy polarimeter experiment has also been performed.