Research on Photonic Crystals for solid state radiators for Cherenkov detection in LHCb

RICH is an LHCb detector used to identify the particles produced in different momentum ranges. The performance of the current gas based detector in the 1-10 GeV/c range needs a significant improvement. A new type of radiator using thin photonic crystals has been proposed as possible alternative, since these crystals are made from layers of dielectric materials resulting in having the desired effective refractive index. I have been part of the R&D team at CERN leading the efforts to build a photonic crystal Cherenkov detector, designing the improved hardware setup of the test laboratory and helping with the computational simulations that search for an optimal configuration of the PhC.