A first approach to mechanical construction and cooling of a composite 3D silicon vertex detector

Abstract This paper presents first results on mechanical and cooling studies for a 3D silicon vertex detector designed for B physics at a hadron collider. Prototype modules were built from raw silicon wafers. One module was instrumented with resistors to simulate readout electronics. Both module movement and temperature variations were recorded. A cooling method utilizing simple air/helium flow was investigated, but proved inadequate because of too large temperature anisotropies.