A new laser test stand for simulating charged-particle tracks

We report on the construction of a new laser test stand equipped with a 1064 nm pulsed infrared YAG laser for simulating the passage of a charged particle in a silicon detector. The standard semiconductor repairing tool, the so-called laser-cutter, has been modified to have a newly developed optics which has the ability to reduce the light by the order of 106–108 and to adjust the spot size to several microns. As an application we measured the position dependence of the induced signals in a silicon-strip detector when the laser light hits in the region between the strips. The measurement has show that this device is very effective in evaluating the detailed response of a silicon detector without using charged particles generated by accelerators.