Silicon pinhole strip defects and their impact on ATLAS Inner Tracker HV current measurement

In preparation for the High-Luminsoity LHC (HL-LHC), the ATLAS detector will undergo major detector upgrades, including the replacement of the current Inner Detector with the new all-silicon Inner Tracker (ITk). The ITk consists of a pixel detector close to the beamline surrounded by a large-area strip detector. During detector production, the electrical properties of silicon sensors and readout electronics must be characterized through a series of quality control (QC) and quality assurance tests. These tests ensure any defect is captured at the earliest possible stage. One such defect, called a pinhole, occurs when the strip implant and the metal readout electrode are shorted through the intermediary dielectric layer. Notably, the introduction of pinholes during module assembly and pinhole effects on completed modules, especially on leakage current measurement circuitry, have never been studied. In this paper, we investigate the effect of such connections on the sensor leakage current measurements of completed modules and introduce new ways to locate pinholed strips. With minor modifications to testing procedures, such defects are shown not to impede module testing or performance.