Apparatus for the measurement of birefringence maps of optical materials: the case of crystalline silicon for Einstein Telescope
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866909646018576384 |
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| author | Soflau, Alina Mariana Della Valle, Federico Cescato, Francesco Di Domenico, Giovanni Mailliet, Aurélie Malagutti, Lorenzo Mariotti, Emilio Mazzolari, Andrea Romagnoni, Marco Zavattini, Guido |
| author_facet | Soflau, Alina Mariana Della Valle, Federico Cescato, Francesco Di Domenico, Giovanni Mailliet, Aurélie Malagutti, Lorenzo Mariotti, Emilio Mazzolari, Andrea Romagnoni, Marco Zavattini, Guido |
| contents | Einstein Telescope (ET) is expected to achieve sensitivity improvements exceeding an order of magnitude compared to current gravitational-wave detectors. The rigorous characterization in optical birefringence of materials and coatings has become a critical task for next-generation detectors, especially since this birefringence is generally spatially non-uniform. A highly sensitive optical polarimeter has been developed at the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences of the University of Ferrara and INFN - Ferrara Section, Italy, aimed at performing two-dimensional birefringence mapping of substrates. In this paper we describe the design and working principle of the system and present results for crystalline silicon, a candidate material for substrates in the low-frequency (LF) interferometers of ET. We find that the birefringence is of order $10^{-7}$ for commercially available samples and is position dependent in the silicon (100)-oriented samples, with variations in both magnitude and axis orientation. We also measure the intrinsic birefringence of the (110) surface. Implications for the performance of gravitational-wave interferometers are discussed. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_09578 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Apparatus for the measurement of birefringence maps of optical materials: the case of crystalline silicon for Einstein Telescope Soflau, Alina Mariana Della Valle, Federico Cescato, Francesco Di Domenico, Giovanni Mailliet, Aurélie Malagutti, Lorenzo Mariotti, Emilio Mazzolari, Andrea Romagnoni, Marco Zavattini, Guido Optics Applied Physics Instrumentation and Detectors Einstein Telescope (ET) is expected to achieve sensitivity improvements exceeding an order of magnitude compared to current gravitational-wave detectors. The rigorous characterization in optical birefringence of materials and coatings has become a critical task for next-generation detectors, especially since this birefringence is generally spatially non-uniform. A highly sensitive optical polarimeter has been developed at the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences of the University of Ferrara and INFN - Ferrara Section, Italy, aimed at performing two-dimensional birefringence mapping of substrates. In this paper we describe the design and working principle of the system and present results for crystalline silicon, a candidate material for substrates in the low-frequency (LF) interferometers of ET. We find that the birefringence is of order $10^{-7}$ for commercially available samples and is position dependent in the silicon (100)-oriented samples, with variations in both magnitude and axis orientation. We also measure the intrinsic birefringence of the (110) surface. Implications for the performance of gravitational-wave interferometers are discussed. |
| title | Apparatus for the measurement of birefringence maps of optical materials: the case of crystalline silicon for Einstein Telescope |
| topic | Optics Applied Physics Instrumentation and Detectors |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09578 |