Performance of the LHCb Vertex Locator

LHCb is a dedicated flavour physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The Vertex Locator (VELO) is an essential part of the LHCb detector, permitting precision measurements of the production and decay vertices of beauty and charm particles. The VELO consists of a series of silicon micro-strip detectors, arranged in two retractable halves. Positioned only 7 mm from the beam during normal operations, it must withstand very high levels of radiation. The performance of the LHCb VELO during the first year of LHC physics running is presented.