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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…
Air annealing generally reduces absorption, scattering, and mechanical loss in amorphous coatings up to temperatures where damage occurs. Our instrument uses an industrial oven with viewports to observe coating scatter and damage during…
Light scattered by amorphous thin-film optical coatings limits the sensitivity of interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. We describe an imaging scatterometer to assess the role that crystal growth during annealing plays in this…
In laser gravitational waves detectors optical loss restricts sensitivity. We discuss polarization scattering as one more possible mechanism of optical losses. Circulated inside interferometer light is polarized and after reflection its…
This paper presents the analysis and characterization of the surface scattering process for both specular and diffused components. The study is focused on the investigation of various building materials each having a different roughness, at…
Focusing light through highly scattering materials by modifying the phase profile of the illuminating beam has attracted a great deal of attention in the past decade paving the way towards novel applications. Here we discovered a tradeoff…
Interferometric tests of a f/1.2 2.5-m diameter liquid mirror show RMS surface deviations about wave/20 and Strehl ratios of order 0.6, showing that it is diffraction limited. The mirror is certainly better than implied by the data because…
We observed and studied strong reduction of optical reflection from the surface of InP wafers after high-temperature annealing. The effect is observed over a wide range of the incident wavelengths, and in the transparency band of the…
Dielectric mirrors comprising thin-film multilayers are widely used in optical experiments because they can achieve substantially higher reflectance compared to metal mirrors. Here we investigate potential problems that can arise when…
High-quality optical resonant cavities require low optical loss, typically on the scale of parts per million. However, unintended micron-scale contaminants on the resonator mirrors that absorb the light circulating in the cavity can deform…
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…
A cavity ringdown system for probing the spatial variation of optical loss across high-reflectivity mirrors is described. This system is employed to examine substrate-transferred crystalline supermirrors and quantify the effect of…
We present high-reflectivity substrate-transferred single-crystal GaAs/AlGaAs interference coatings at a center wavelength of 4.54 um with record-low excess optical loss below 10 parts per million. These high-performance mirrors are…
Disordered packings of colloidal spheres show angle-independent structural color when the particles are on the scale of the wavelength of visible light. Previous work has shown that the positions of the peaks in the reflectance spectra can…
Increasing the light scattering efficiency of nanostructured materials is becoming an active field of research both in fundamental science and commercial applications. In this context, the challenge is to use inexpensive organic materials…
This paper considers the effects of small highly contrasted particles on the subwavelength resonances of a system of high-contrast resonators, with an application to sensing. The key technique is a multiple scattering expansion of the…
Microscopy and optical imaging are drastically limited by the inhomogeneities encountered by the light while propagating from the object of interest to the detection system. In this context, adaptive optics and wavefront manipulation are…
As light travels through a disordered medium such as biological tissues, it undergoes multiple scattering events. This phenomenon is detrimental to in-depth optical microscopy, as it causes a drastic degradation of contrast, resolution and…
The scattering of polarized light incident from one dielectric medium on its two-dimensional randomly rough interface with a second dielectric medium is studied. A reduced Rayleigh equation for the scattering amplitudes is derived for the…
The G230LB grating used with STIS's CCD detector scatters red light. In red objects, the scattered light mingles with the ultraviolet signal, causing spurious short-wavelength flux and weakening absorption features. Recent calibration…