Photothermal self-phase-modulation technique for absorption measurements on high-reflective coatings

Steinlechner, J., Jensen, L., Krueger, C., Lastzka, N., Steinlechner, S. and Schnabel, R. (2012) Photothermal self-phase-modulation technique for absorption measurements on high-reflective coatings. Applied Optics, 51(8), pp. 1156-1161. (doi: 10.1364/AO.51.001156)

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Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a new measurement technique for the optical absorption of high-reflection coatings. Our technique is based on photothermal self-phase modulation and exploits the deformation of cavity Airy peaks that occurs due to coating absorption of intracavity light. The mirror whose coating is under investigation needs to be the input mirror of a high-finesse cavity. Our example measurements were performed on a high-reflection SiO2 –Ta2O5 coating in a three-mirror ring-cavity setup at a wavelength of 1064 nm. The optical absorption of the coating was determined to be α = ( 23.9 +/- 2.0 ) x 10^(−6) per coating. Our result is in excellent agreement with an independently performed laser calorimetry measurement that gave a value of α = ( 24.4 +/- 3.2 ) x 10^(−6) per coating. Since the self-phase modulation in our coating absorption measurement affects mainly the propagation through the cavity input mirror, our measurement result is practically uninfluenced by the optical absorption of the other cavity mirrors.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Steinlechner, Dr Jessica and Steinlechner, Dr Sebastian
Authors: Steinlechner, J., Jensen, L., Krueger, C., Lastzka, N., Steinlechner, S., and Schnabel, R.
Subjects:Q Science > QC Physics
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
Journal Name:Applied Optics
Publisher:Optical Society of America
ISSN:1559-128X
ISSN (Online):2155-3165

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