Characterisation of polarising components at cryogenic temperature

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chanelière, Thierry, Chepelianskii, Alexei D.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Chanelière, Thierry
Chepelianskii, Alexei D.
author_facet Chanelière, Thierry
Chepelianskii, Alexei D.
contents Controlling polarisation directly at low temperature is crucial for development of optical spectroscopy techniques at sub-Kelvin temperatures, for example, in a hybrid scheme where light is fed into and collected in the cryostat by fibres that are as easy to install as electrical wiring, but where distortions in the fibre need to be compensated for by discrete polarising optical components. The latter are poorly characterised at low temperatures. So we cool-down polarising components from room temperature to 4K and monitor the evolution of the polarisation properties in this range. We test a zero-order half-wave plate, a polarising beamsplitting cube and a dichroic polariser in the optical telecommunication range at 1.5$μ$m. We show that the polarisation is maintained at the $10^{-4}$ level within the whole temperature range. This is consistent with the typical thermal contraction of optical materials. This level of precision is sufficient for many optics experiments at low temperature. We argue that these experiments will allow the design of compact fibre based probes for cryogenic surfaces.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_02362
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Characterisation of polarising components at cryogenic temperature
Chanelière, Thierry
Chepelianskii, Alexei D.
Optics
Controlling polarisation directly at low temperature is crucial for development of optical spectroscopy techniques at sub-Kelvin temperatures, for example, in a hybrid scheme where light is fed into and collected in the cryostat by fibres that are as easy to install as electrical wiring, but where distortions in the fibre need to be compensated for by discrete polarising optical components. The latter are poorly characterised at low temperatures. So we cool-down polarising components from room temperature to 4K and monitor the evolution of the polarisation properties in this range. We test a zero-order half-wave plate, a polarising beamsplitting cube and a dichroic polariser in the optical telecommunication range at 1.5$μ$m. We show that the polarisation is maintained at the $10^{-4}$ level within the whole temperature range. This is consistent with the typical thermal contraction of optical materials. This level of precision is sufficient for many optics experiments at low temperature. We argue that these experiments will allow the design of compact fibre based probes for cryogenic surfaces.
title Characterisation of polarising components at cryogenic temperature
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02362