Establishing the design and development of novel crystalline-amorphous hybrid optical coatings for precision measurements and frequency standards

建立用于精密测量和频率标准的新型晶体-非晶混合光学涂层的设计和开发

• 批准号: ST/X004740/1
• 负责人: Iain Martin
• 金额: $ 29.66万
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FX004740%2F1
• 关键词: Establishing; design; development; novel; crystalline

Optical coatings - typically consisting of multiple thin layers of alternating amorphous (glass-like) materials - are widely used to form highly reflective mirrors, efficient anti-reflective coatings or optical filters which allow particular wavelengths to be transmitted. Highly-reflective coatings are a key part of gravitational wave detectors. These instruments measure tiny changes in length caused by gravitational waves passing through the Earth, and have so far detected almost 100 astrophysical gravitational wave signals from merging black holes and neutron stars. Future, more sensitive detectors are planned to expand the capabilities of gravitational wave astronomy, and improving the performance of optical mirror coatings is a critical challenge for these new detectors. This project aims to combine a traditional multilayer optical coating with a thin crystalline cap-layer, creating a crystalline-amorphous hybrid coating, enabling optimised coating designs with a number of advantages for both scientific and industrial applications.Using an appropriate crystalline top-layer can allow a significant fraction of the incoming light to be reflected by the top layer along, reducing the laser power present in the multi-layer stack below. This reduced power can in turn change the requirements for the coating materials which can be used in the stack, for example allowing the use of materials with a high optical absorption which would be intolerant to higher light power. This has direct applications in gravitational wave detectors, where minimising the absorption of light in the coatings is essential to allow future mirrors to operated at cryogenic temperatures. There are also many potential applications in industry, where coatings which are tolerant of high light intensity are required in situations where high laser powers, or very small laser beams, are required.

光学涂层（通常由多个薄层交替的无定形（玻璃）材料组成）广泛用于形成高度反射的镜子，有效的抗反射涂层或光学过滤器，以允许传输特定的波长。高度反射涂料是重力波检测器的关键部分。这些仪器测量了由穿过地球的重力波引起的长度变化的微小变化，到目前为止，它与合并黑洞和中子星的合并后，已经检测到了几乎100个天体物理引力波信号。未来，计划更敏感的探测器扩大了重力波天文学的能力，并且改善光学镜涂层的性能是这些新探测器的关键挑战。该项目旨在将传统的多层光学涂层与薄的结晶帽层结合，创建一个晶体不固有的混合涂层，从而使优化的涂层设计和许多优势在科学和工业应用中都具有许多优势。使用适当的晶体层可以使高层的稳定力量相同，使其构成高度的效率，并在不合适的情况下构成了层次的效率，并将其改进。下面的多层堆栈。这种降低的功率反过来可以改变可在堆栈中使用的涂料材料的要求，例如允许使用具有高光吸收的材料，这对更高的光功率不易。这在重力波探测器中有直接应用，其中最大程度地减少了涂料中光的吸收对于允许将来的镜子在低温温度下操作至关重要。在行业中也有许多潜在的应用，在需要高激光功率或非常小的激光束的情况下，需要耐高光强度的涂层。