Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 482 (2002) 634–643 Irradiation of a silicon-strip detector for the ALICE experiment at LHC M. Germain a, *, L. Arnold a , J. Baudot a , D. Bonnet a , J.P. Coffin a , W. Dulinski b , C. Gojak a , G. Guillaume a , B. Hippolyte a , C. Kuhn a , J.R. Lutz a , C. Suire a , A. Tarchini a a Institut de Recherches Subatomiques-IReS - IN2P3/CNRS - ULP BP28, 23 Rue du Loess, F 67037 Strasbourg Cedex 02, France b Laboratoire d’Electronique et de Physique des Syst " emes Instrumentaux LEPSI - IN2P3/CNRS - ULP BP28, F 67037 Strasbourg Cedex 02, France Received 11 April 2001; received in revised form 2 July 2001; accepted 24 July 2001 Abstract The ALICE detector at LHC is a complex apparatus which makes use, in its inner tracking-system part, of silicon- strip detectors (SSD). These sensors will be exposed to radiations which might possibly harm their performance as well as that of the associated readout electronics. In the framework of a R&D, a detection module, incorporating SSD and readout electronics, has been irradiated with 20 MeV protons up to 530 krad: Results relative to the static and the dynamic characteristics of this module are presented and discussed. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 29.40.W; 07.89; 61.82.F Keywords: Silicon-strip detectors; Radiation damages; ALICE experiment 1. Introduction The ALICE [1] experiment is expected to run for 10 years from 2006. Simulations [1,2] indicate that the total radiation load of silicon-strip detector (SSD) modules, corresponding to the two outer layers of the Inner Tracking system (ITS), should not exceed a total of about 10 krad: Yet this value could be larger due to beam tuning, especially during proton runs, thus reaching a level at which SSDs might suffer damages. The behavior of SSD detectors under irradiation has been extensively studied in general, but not much data are available for relatively low doses. Furthermore, most of the studies are devoted to the analysis of SSD performance once the irradiation has been per- formed. Much less information is available about the quantitative change of characteristics of the object during the irradiation. This is the aim of the present article. The ALICE SSD, double-sided with 768 strips on each side, have been described in detail in a previous work [3]. The strips are polarized at 55 V by means of a bias ring, surrounding them, via ‘‘punch thru’’ technique, whose radiation *Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-3-8810-6199. E-mail address: marie.germain@ires.in2p3.fr (M. Germain). 0168-9002/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0168-9002(01)01928-3