Waveguide grating mirror in a fully suspended 10 meter Fabry-Perot cavity

Friedrich, D. et al. (2011) Waveguide grating mirror in a fully suspended 10 meter Fabry-Perot cavity. Optics Express, 19(16), pp. 14955-14963. (doi: 10.1364/OE.19.014955)

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Abstract

We report on the first demonstration of a fully suspended 10m Fabry-Perot cavity incorporating a waveguide grating as the coupling mirror. The cavity was kept on resonance by reading out the length fluctuations via the Pound-Drever-Hall method and employing feedback to the laser frequency. From the achieved finesse of 790 the grating reflectivity was determined to exceed 99.2% at the laser wavelength of 1064 nm, which is in good agreement with rigorous simulations. Our waveguide grating design was based on tantala and fused silica and included a ≈ 20 nm thin etch stop layer made of Al2O3 that allowed us to define the grating depth accurately and preserve the waveguide thickness during the fabrication process. Demonstrating stable operation of a waveguide grating featuring high reflectivity in a suspended low-noise cavity, our work paves the way for the potential application of waveguide gratings as mirrors in high-precision interferometry, for instance in future gravitational wave observatories.

Item Type:Articles
Keywords:Gratings; Fabry-Perot; Mirrors; Subwavelength structures
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Hild, Professor Stefan and Barr, Dr Bryan and Sorazu Lucio, Dr Borja and Edgar, Dr Matthew and Plissi, Dr Michael and Nelson, Mr John and Huttner, Dr Sabina and Strain, Professor Kenneth
Authors: Friedrich, D., Barr, B. W., Bruckner, F., Hild, S., Nelson, J., Macarthur, J., Plissi, M., Edgar, M., Huttner, S., Sorazu, B., Kroker, S., Britzger, M., Kley, E.-B., Danzmann, K., Tünnermann, A., Strain, K. A., and Schnabel, R.
Subjects:Q Science > QC Physics
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
Research Centre:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy > Institute for Gravitational Research
Journal Name:Optics Express
Publisher:Optical Society of America
ISSN:1094-4087
ISSN (Online):1094-4087

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