Development and testing of novel strip-pixel detectors for the silicon vertex tracker at PHENIX

As a part of the upgrades for the PHENIX detector at RHIC, a silicon vertex tracking detector is planned. This detector will consist of two pixel layers followed by two strip-pixel layers in the barrel region, and four mini-strip layers in the endcap region. As a part of the development phase of the vertex detector, we have set up three sensor testing facilities at Brookhaven National Laboratory, at State University of New York, Stonybrook, and at University of New Mexico to characterize the preproduction sensors, and develop our testing and quality assurance plans. Preliminary results from these test are presented here. (author)