Related papers: Thermal Noise Reduction and Absorption Optimisatio…
Acousto-optic modulation in photonic integrated circuits harness the applications that include signal processing, quantum photonics and microwave photonics. However, silicon nitride ($\rm{Si_3N_4}$), as a main-stream low-loss scalable…
Selective solar absorbers (SSAs) with high performance are the key to concentrated solar power systems. Optical metamaterials are emerging as a promising strategy to enhance selective photon absorption, however, the high-temperature…
CMOS detectors offer many advantages over CCDs for optical and UV astronomical applications, especially in space where high radiation tolerance is required. However, astronomical instruments are most often designed for low light-level…
Higher-order Laguerre-Gauss (LG) modes have previously been investigated as a candidate for reducing test-mass thermal noise in ground-based gravitational-wave detectors like Advanced LIGO. It has been shown however that LG modes' fragility…
In this work, we investigate dielectric materials for thermoreflectance-based thermal sensing by extracting key optical parameters using temperature-dependent spectroscopic ellipsometry in the mid-infrared regime. Leveraging optical phonon…
We demonstrate thin-film metamaterials with resonances in the mid-infrared wavelength range. Our structures are numerically modeled and experimentally characterized by reflection and angularly-resolved thermal emission spectroscopy. We…
Integrated photonic circuits have transformed data communication, biosensing, and light detection and ranging, and hold wide-ranging potential for optical computing, optical imaging and signal processing. These applications often require…
A compact cryogenic calibration target is presented that has a peak diffuse reflectance, $R \le 0.003$, from $800-4,800\,{\rm cm}^{-1}$ $(12-2\,\mu$m). Upon expanding the spectral range under consideration to $400-10,000\,{\rm cm}^{-1}$…
Total Body PET (TBPET) scanners have recently demonstrated the ability to significantly reduce both acquisition time and the administered radioactive dose, thanks to their increased sensitivity. However, their widespread adoption is limited…
Thermal noise is the predominant instability in the provision of ultrastable laser frequency, referencing to an optical cavity. Reducing the thermal-noise limit of a cavity means either making it larger to spread thermal fluctuations,…
Fabrication of dielectrics at low temperature is required for temperature-sensitive detectors. For superconducting detectors, such as transition edge sensors and kinetic inductance detectors, AlMn is widely studied due to its variable…
In this paper we study several means of compensating for thermal lensing which, otherwise, should be a source of concern for future upgrades of interferometric detectors of gravitational waves. The methods we develop are based on the…
Substrate-transferred crystalline coatings have recently emerged as a groundbreaking new concept in optical interference coatings. Building upon our initial demonstration of this technology, we have now realized significant improvements in…
As the first generation of laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors near operation, research and development has begun on increasing the instrument's sensitivity while utilizing the existing infrastructure. In the Laser…
The baseline energy-resolution performance for the current generation of large-mass, low-temperature calorimeters (utilizing TES and NTD sensor technologies) is $>2$ orders of magnitude worse than theoretical predictions. A detailed study…
Amorphous silica (a-SiO$_2$) is a foundational disordered material for which the thermal transport properties are important for various applications. To accurately model the interatomic interactions in classical molecular dynamics (MD)…
Optical measurements of a nanoscale silicon optomechanical crystal cavity with a mechanical resonance frequency of 3.6GHz are performed at sub-kelvin temperatures. We infer optical-absorption-induced heating and damping of the mechanical…
A novel photonic thermal diode concept operating in the near field and capitalizing on the temperature-dependence of coupled surface polariton modes in nanostructures is proposed. The diode concept utilizes terminals made of the same…
We report on the development and extensive characterization of co-sputtered tantala-zirconia thin films, with the goal to decrease coating Brownian noise in present and future gravitational-wave detectors. We tested a variety of sputtering…
Suitable shaping (in particular, flattening and broadening) of the laser beam has recently been proposed as an effective device to reduce internal (mirror) thermal noise in advanced gravitational wave interferometric detectors. Based on…