Titania-doped tantala/silica coatings for gravitational-wave detection

Harry, Gregory M.; Abernathy, Matthew R.; Becerra-Toledo, Andres E.; Armandula, Helena; Black, Eric; Dooley, Kate; Eichenfield, Matt; Nwabugwu, Chinyere; Villar, Akira; Crooks, D. R. M.; Cagnoli, Gianpietro; Hough, Jim; How, Colin R.; MacLaren, Ian; Murray, Peter; Reid, Stuart; Rowan, Sheila; Sneddon, Peter H.; Fejer, Martin M; Route, Roger; Penn, Steven D.; Ganau, Patrick; Mackowski, Jean-Marie; Michel, Christophe; Pinard, Laurent; Remillieux, Alban

Titania-doped tantala/silica coatings for gravitational-wave detection

Authors

Harry, Gregory M.

Abernathy, Matthew R.

Becerra-Toledo, Andres E.

Description

Reducing thermal noise from optical coatings is crucial to reaching the required sensitivity in next generation interferometric gravitational-waves detectors. Here we show that adding TiO$_2$ to Ta$_2$O$_5$ in Ta$_2$O$_5$/SiO$_2$ coatings reduces the internal friction and in addition present data confirming it reduces thermal noise. We also show that TiO$_2$-doped Ta$_2$O$_5$/SiO$_2$ coatings are close to satisfying the optical absorption requirements of second generation gravitational-wave detectors.