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Main Authors: Adam, Alex, Blair, Carl, Zhao, Chunnong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.23711
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author Adam, Alex
Blair, Carl
Zhao, Chunnong
author_facet Adam, Alex
Blair, Carl
Zhao, Chunnong
contents The next generation of gravitational wave detectors will move to cryogenic operation in order to reduce thermal noise and thermal distortion. This necessitates a change in mirror substrate with silicon being a good candidate. Birefringence is an effect that will degrade the sensitivity of a detector and is of greater concern in silicon due to its crystalline nature. We measure the birefringence in a <100> float zone silicon beamsplitter since we expect there to be a large inherent birefringence due to the spatial dispersion effect. We observe that the birefringence varied between $3.44 \pm 0.12 \times 10^{-7}$ and $1.63 \pm 0.05 \times 10^{-7}$ and estimate the birefringence along the <110> axis to be $1.64 \pm 0.5 \times 10^{-6}$ at 2um. We demonstrate this effect and argue that it strengthens the case for 2um and <100> silicon.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_23711
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Birefringence in a Silicon Beamsplitter at 2um for Future Gravitational Wave Detectors
Adam, Alex
Blair, Carl
Zhao, Chunnong
Optics
The next generation of gravitational wave detectors will move to cryogenic operation in order to reduce thermal noise and thermal distortion. This necessitates a change in mirror substrate with silicon being a good candidate. Birefringence is an effect that will degrade the sensitivity of a detector and is of greater concern in silicon due to its crystalline nature. We measure the birefringence in a <100> float zone silicon beamsplitter since we expect there to be a large inherent birefringence due to the spatial dispersion effect. We observe that the birefringence varied between $3.44 \pm 0.12 \times 10^{-7}$ and $1.63 \pm 0.05 \times 10^{-7}$ and estimate the birefringence along the <110> axis to be $1.64 \pm 0.5 \times 10^{-6}$ at 2um. We demonstrate this effect and argue that it strengthens the case for 2um and <100> silicon.
title Birefringence in a Silicon Beamsplitter at 2um for Future Gravitational Wave Detectors
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.23711