The LHCb Vertex Locator: Present and future

LHCb is a forward-angle spectrometer, dedicated to the study of b-hadron physics, presently under construction at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The main task of the Vertex Locator (VELO) is to reconstruct primary and secondary vertices. It consists of two retractable detector halves with 21 silicon micro-strip tracking modules each. A module is composed of two half discs of 300μm thickness with R and Φ micro-strip geometry. The construction of the VELO detector approaches its completion and installation is planned for early 2007. Under nominal LHCb running conditions the lifetime of the VELO detector is expected to amount to 3 years. Various upgrade scenarios are therefore already under study such as 3D detectors and sensors based on n-in-p or pixel technology