Related papers: Medium range structural order in amorphous tantala…
High finesse optical cavities of current interferometric gravitational-wave detectors are significantly limited in sensitivity by laser quantum noise and coating thermal noise. The thermal noise is associated with internal energy…
We present the results of mechanical characterizations of many different high-quality optical coatings made of ion-beam-sputtered titania-doped tantala and silica, developed originally for interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. Our…
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…
Amorphous films of tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) are widely applied to build highly reflective mirrors used in interferometric gravitational wave detectors, such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). Despite a large…
Brownian thermal noise is a limiting factor for the sensitivity of many high precision metrology applications, among other gravitational-wave detectors. The origin of Brownian noise can be traced down to internal friction in the amorphous…
Thermodynamically induced length fluctuations of high-reflectivity mirror coatings put a fundamental limit on sensitivity and stability of precision optical interferometers like gravitational wave detectors and ultra-stable lasers. The main…
Annealing of amorphous optical coatings has been shown to generally reduce optical absorption, optical scattering, and mechanical loss, with higher temperature annealing giving better results. The achievable maximum temperatures are limited…
Thermally induced fluctuations impose a fundamental limit on precision measurement. In optical interferometry, the current bounds of stability and sensitivity are dictated by the excess mechanical damping of the high-reflectivity coatings…
The sensitivity of current and planned gravitational wave interferometric detectors is limited, in the most critical frequency region around 100 Hz, by a combination of quantum noise and thermal noise. The latter is dominated by Brownian…
In recent years an increasing number of devices and experiments are shown to be limited by mechanical thermal noise. In particular sub-Hertz laser frequency stabilization and gravitational wave detectors, that are able to measure…
Upgrades to ground-based gravitational-wave observatories will require mirror coatings with reduced thermal noise, enabling improved detector sensitivity and extended astrophysical reach. Recent studies have shown that optical coatings…
Thermal noise is expected to be one of the noise sources limiting the astrophysical reach of Advanced LIGO (once commissioning is complete) and third-generation detectors. Adopting crystalline materials for thin, reflecting mirror coatings,…
In second-generation, ground-based interferometric gravitational-wave detectors such as Advanced LIGO, the dominant noise at frequencies $f \sim 40$ Hz to $\sim 200$ Hz is expected to be due to thermal fluctuations in the mirrors'…
Current interferometric gravitational wave detectors use test masses with mirror coatings formed from multiple layers of dielectric materials, most commonly alternating layers of SiO2 (silica) and Ta2O5 (tantala). However, mechanical loss…
Glasses are nonequilibrium solids with properties highly dependent on their method of preparation. In vapor-deposited molecular glasses, structural organization could be readily tuned with deposition rate and substrate temperature. Herein,…
Internal friction in oxide thin films imposes a critical limitation to the sensitivity and stability of ultra-high finesse optical cavities for gravitational wave detectors. Strategies like doping or creating nanolaminates are sought to…
Reduction of coating thermal noise is a key issue in precise measurements with an optical interferometer. A good example of such a measurement device is a gravitational-wave detector, where each mirror is coated by a few tens of…
Future gravitational wave detectors (GWDs) such as Advanced LIGO upgrades and the Einstein Telescope are planned to operate at cryogenic temperatures using crystalline silicon (cSi) test-mass mirrors at an operation wavelength of 1550 nm.…
The medium range order (MRO) in amorphous systems has been linked to complex features such as the dynamic heterogeneity of supercooled liquids or the plastic deformation of glasses. However, the nature of the MRO in these materials has…
Amorphous thin films of Tb$_{17}$Co$_{83}$ (a-Tb-Co) grown by magnetron co-sputtering exhibit changes in magnetic anisotropy with varying growth and annealing temperatures. The magnetic anisotropy constant increases with increasing growth…