arXiv · 1104.2780
Waveguide grating mirror in a fully suspended 10 meter Fabry-Perot cavity
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 ~20nm thin etch stop layer made of Al2O3 that allowed us to define the grating depth accurately 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.
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Daniel Friedrich, Bryan W. Barr, Frank Brückner, Stefan Hild, John Nelson, John Mcarthur, Michael V. Plissi, Matthew P. Edgar, Sabina H. Huttner, Borja Sorazu, Stefanie Kroker, Michael Britzger, Ernst-Bernhard Kley, Karsten Danzmann, Andreas Tünnermann, Ken A. Strain, Roman Schnabel. 2011-04-14. Waveguide grating mirror in a fully suspended 10 meter Fabry-Perot cavity. https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.19.014955
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