First measurement of efficiency and precision of CCD detectors for high energy physics

Abstract It has been known for some time that a 2-dimensional charge-coupled device (CCD) might be used for detecting high energy particles with high precision and excellent 2-track resolution. Such detectors could be used to distinguish between prompt tracks and decay products in events producing short-lived particles (heavy leptons, charm, beauty etc.). We now present results in which (for the first time) a telescope of CCD detectors has been operated in a beam of high energy particles. The main results are that even these early detectors have excellent performance characteristics, namely efficiency for track detection of 98±2% per plane, spatial resolution of 4.3 μm and 6.1 μm in two orthogonal directions and 2-track resolution of 40 μm in space.