Optical absorption of ion-beam sputtered amorphous silicon coatings

Jessica Steinlechner, Iain W. Martin, Riccardo Bassiri, Angus Bell, Martin M. Fejer, Jim Hough, Ashot Markosyan, Roger K. Route, Sheila Rowan, and Zeno Tornasi
Phys. Rev. D 93, 062005 – Published 25 March 2016

Abstract

Low mechanical loss at low temperatures and a high index of refraction should make silicon optimally suited for thermal noise reduction in highly reflective mirror coatings for gravitational wave detectors. However, due to high optical absorption, amorphous silicon (aSi) is unsuitable for being used as a direct high-index coating material to replace tantala. A possible solution is a multimaterial design, which enables exploitation of the excellent mechanical properties of aSi in the lower coating layers. The possible number of aSi layers increases with absorption reduction. In this work, the optimum heat treatment temperature of aSi deposited via ion-beam sputtering was investigated and found to be 450°C. For this temperature, the absorption after deposition of a single layer of aSi at 1064 nm and 1550 nm was reduced by more than 80%.

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  • Received 10 February 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.93.062005

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Jessica Steinlechner1, Iain W. Martin1,*, Riccardo Bassiri2, Angus Bell1, Martin M. Fejer2, Jim Hough1, Ashot Markosyan2, Roger K. Route2, Sheila Rowan1, and Zeno Tornasi1

  • 1SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland
  • 2E.L. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

  • *iain.martin@glasgow.ac.uk

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Vol. 93, Iss. 6 — 15 March 2016

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