Related papers: Thermal Noise Reduction and Absorption Optimisatio…
Silicon photonics promises to alleviate the bandwidth bottleneck of modern day computing systems. But silicon photonic devices have the fundamental problem of being highly sensitive to ambient temperature fluctuations due to the high…
Employing amorphous superconductors, such as Type-II molybdenum silicide (MoSi), instead of crystalline materials significantly simplifies the material deposition and scalable nanoscale prototyping, beneficial for quantum electronic and…
The last years have seen the first cryogenic detectors to be proposed for usage on balloon-borne missions. In such missions, the instrument will be exposed to the high radiation environment of the upper atmosphere. This radiation can induce…
We report on the microscopic surface structure of carbon-fiber-reinforced silicon carbide (C/SiC) composite mirrors that have been improved for the Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) and other cooled telescopes.…
A method to engineer the refractive indices of functional materials (TiO2, ZnO, SnO2, SiO2), by nanostructuring in the deep sub-wavelength regime (<20nm), is presented. Block-copolymer templating combined with a wet processing route is used…
This paper introduces a thermal infrared detector utilizing a nano-optomechanical silicon nitride (SiN) resonator, equipped with a free-space impedance-matched (FSIM) absorber composed of a platinum (Pt) thin film, offering a broadband…
Coating thermal noise in high-reflectivity test-mass mirrors is a major limitation for future gravitational-wave detectors, especially in the 10--300 Hz band. ET-Pathfinder therefore requires mirror coatings that combine very high…
Stimulated Brillouin scattering was recently observed in nanoscale silicon waveguides. Surprisingly, thermally-driven photon-phonon conversion in these structures had not yet been reported. Here, we inject an optical probe in a suspended…
Amorphous oxide thin films play a fundamental role in state-of-the art interferometry experiments, such as gravitational wave detectors where these films compose the high reflectance mirrors of end and input masses. The sensitivity of these…
CLIO (Cryogenic Laser Interferometer Observatory) is a Japanese gravitational wave detector project. One of the main purposes of CLIO is to demonstrate thermal-noise suppression by cooling mirrors for a future Japanese project, LCGT…
We present the calculation of thermal noise in interferometric gravitational-wave detectors due to the thermal fluctuations of the beam splitter (BS). This work makes use of a recently developed method of the analysis of thermal noise in…
It has been reported that treating music wire (high carbon steel wire) by cooling to cryogenic temperatures can enhance its mechanical properties with particular reference to those properties important for musical performance. We use such…
We report on the development of coatings for a CCD detector optimized for use in a fixed dispersion UV spectrograph. Due to the rapidly changing index of refraction of Si, single layer broadband anti-reflection coatings are not suitable to…
Optomechanical transduction harnesses the interaction between optical fields and mechanical motion to achieve sensitive measurement of weak mechanical quantities with inherently low noise. Lithium niobate combines low optical loss, strong…
Large scale laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors (GWDs), such as GEO 600 require high quality optics to reach their design sensitivity. The inevitable surface imperfections, inhomogeneities and light-absorption induced thermal…
The low temperature properties of glass are distinct from those of crystals due to the presence of poorly understood low-energy excitations. The tunneling model proposes that these are atoms tunneling between nearby equilibria, forming…
A new method of probing mechanical losses and comparing the corresponding deposition processes of metallic and dielectric coatings in 1-100 MHz frequency range and cryogenic temperatures is presented. The method is based on the use of…
The use of fused-silica ribbons as suspensions in gravitational wave interferometers can result in significant improvements in pendulum mode thermal noise. Surface loss sets a lower bound to the level of noise achievable, at what level…
Thermoelectric material provides a high hope for converting harmful and useless heat into useful energy, electricity. It can also be used as solid state Peltier coolers in integrated circuits, an outstanding challenge for electronic…
Optical coatings formed from amorphous oxide thin films have many applications in precision measurements. The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Advanced Virgo use coatings of SiO$_2$ (silica) and…