Test of a fine pitch SOI pixel detector with laser beam

A silicon pixel detector with fine pitch size of 19x19 um, developed base on SOI (silicon on insulator) technology, was tested under the illumination of infrared laser pulses. As an alternative way to particle beam tests, the laser pulses were tuned to very short duration and small transverse profile to simulate the tracks of MIPs (minimum ionization particles) in silicon. Hit cluster sizes were measured with focused laser pulses propagating through the SOI detector perpendicular to its surface and most of the induced charge was found to be collected inside the seed pixel. For the first time, the signal amplitude as a function of the applied bias voltage was measured for this SOI detector, deepening understanding of its depletion characteristics.