EASY: Educational Alibava System

Abstract

EASY, a plug-and-play educational system, is portable, compact and a complete system for micro-strip sensor characterization. Ideal for making basic or complex experiments. It is based on the Classic Alibava System [1], largely used within the CERN community to test micro-strip detectors for particle experiments. The system can be configured to work with pulsed laser light or radioactive sources. The aim of this system is to illustrate students in the operation of a silicon strip detectors The components of the EASY systems are the Control Unit and the Sensor Unit. The Control Unit is the heart of the system communicating with the Sensor Unit and the Computer software. It contains the Data Acquisition Control and it is also in charge of processing of the sensor data and trigger inputs. In addition, it contains an adjustable Hight Voltage unit for micro-strip sensor bias, with voltage and current display and includes the laser source. The Control Unit communicates with computer software via USB. The Sensor Unit accommodate a p-on-n silicon micro-strip sensor segmented in 128 strips. EASY comes with an activity book where the students, through 10 exercises, are introduced in the main concepts and functionalities of micro-strip silicon detectors, used in the actual particle physic experiments. The book also provides a full description of the EASY device and the data Acquisition system.

Keywords

• education
• ionization detector
• micro-strip sensor
• data acquisition and processing
• pedestal
• noise
• signal cluster
• charge collection
• depletion voltage
• charge sharing
• laser penetration