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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 data show that in multi-layer stacks (like high-reflection Bragg mirrors, for example) the measured coating dissipation is systematically higher than the expectation and is correlated with the stress condition in the sample. This has a particular relevance for the noise budget of current advanced gravitational-wave interferometers, and, more generally, for any experiment involving thermal-noise limited optical cavities.
We report on the results of an extensive campaign of optical and mechanical characterization of the ion-beam sputtered oxide layers (Ta$_2$O$_5$, TiO$_2$, Ta$_2$O$_5$-TiO$_2$, SiO$_2$) within the high-reflection coatings of the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors: refractive index, thickness, optical absorption, composition, density, internal friction and elastic constants have been measured; the impact of deposition rate and post-deposition annealing on coating internal friction has been assessed. For Ta$_2$O$_5$ and SiO$_2$ layers, coating internal friction increases with the deposition rate, whereas the annealing treatment either erases or largely reduces the gap between samples with different deposition history. For Ta$_2$O$_5$-TiO$_2$ layers, the reduction of internal friction due to TiO$_2$ doping becomes effective only if coupled with annealing. All measured samples showed a weak dependence of internal friction on frequency ($phi_c(f) = af^{b}$, with $-0.208 < b < 0.140$ depending on the coating material considered). SiO$_2$ films showed a mode-dependent loss branching, likely due to spurious losses at the coated edge of the samples. The reference loss values of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo input (ITM) and end (ETM) mirror HR coatings have been updated by using our estimated value of Youngs modulus of Ta$_2$O$_5$-TiO$_2$ layers (120 GPa) and are about 10% higher than previous estimations.
Coating thermal noise is a fundamental limit for precision experiments based on optical and quantum transducers. In this review, after a brief overview of the techniques for coating thermal noise measurements, we present the latest world-wide research activity on low-noise coatings, with a focus on the results obtained at the Laboratoire des Mat{e}riaux Avanc{e}s. We report new updated values for the Ta$_2$O$_5$, Ta$_2$O$_5$-TiO$_2$ and SiO$_2$ coatings of the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA detectors, and new results from sputtered Nb$_2$O$_5$, TiO$_2$-Nb$_2$O$_5$, Ta$_2$O$_5$-ZrO$_2$, MgF$_2$, AlF$_3$ and silicon nitride coatings. Amorphous silicon, crystalline coatings, high-temperature deposition, multi-material coatings and composite layers are also briefly discussed, together with the latest developments of structural analyses and models.
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 noise: thermal motion originating from the elastic energy dissipation in the dielectric coatings used in the interferometer mirrors. The energy dissipation is a material property characterized by the mechanical loss angle. We have identified mixtures of titanium dioxide (TiO$_2$) and germanium dioxide (GeO$_2$) that show internal dissipations at a level of 1 $times 10^{-4}$, low enough to provide almost a factor of two improvement on the level of Brownian noise with respect to the state-of-the-art materials. We show that by using a mixture of 44% TiO$_2$ and 56% GeO$_2$ in the high refractive index layers of the interferometer mirrors, it would be possible to achieve a thermal noise level in line with the design requirements. These results are a crucial step forward to produce the mirrors needed to meet the thermal noise requirements for the planned upgrades of the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors.
Optical tweezers are an invaluable tool for non-contact trapping and micro-manipulation, but their ability to facilitate high-throughput volumetric microrheology of biological samples for mechanobiology research is limited by the precise alignment associated with the excitation and detection of individual bead oscillations. In contrast, radiation pressure from a low numerical aperture optical beam can apply transversely localized force over an extended depth range. We propose photonic force optical coherence elastography (PF-OCE), leveraging phase-sensitive interferometric detection to track sub-nanometre oscillations of beads, embedded in viscoelastic hydrogels, induced by modulated radiation pressure. Since the displacements caused by ultra-low radiation-pressure force are typically obscured by absorption-mediated thermal effects, mechanical responses of the beads were isolated after independent measurement and decoupling of the photothermal response of the hydrogels. Volumetric imaging of bead mechanical responses in hydrogels with different agarose concentrations by PF-OCE was consistent with bulk mechanical characterization of the hydrogels by shear rheometry.
In this paper we show that state-of-the-art commercial off-the-shelf Flash memory chip technology (20 nm technology node with multi-level cells) is quite sensitive to ionizing radiation. We find that the fail-bit count in these Flash chips starts to increase monotonically with gamma or X-ray dose at 100 rad(SiO2). Significantly more fail bits are observed in X-ray irradiated devices, most likely due to dose enhancement effects due to high-Z back-end-of-line materials. These results show promise for dosimetry application.