Frequency stability of cryogenic silicon cavities with semiconductor crystalline coatings

authored by: Dhruv Kedar, Jialiang Yu, Eric Oelker, Alexander Staron, William R. Milner, John M. Robinson, Thomas Legero, Fritz Riehle, Uwe Sterr, Jun Ye
Abstract: State-of-the-art optical oscillators employing cryogenic reference cavities are limited in performance by the Brownian thermal noise associated with the mechanical dissipation of the mirror coatings.Recently, crystalline Al1-xGaxAs=GaAs coatings have emerged as a promising candidate for improved coating thermal noise.We present measurements of the frequency noise of two fully crystalline cryogenic reference cavities with Al0.92Ga0.08As=GaAs optical coatings. We report on birefringent noise associated with anticorrelated frequency fluctuations between the polarization modes of the crystalline coatings and identify variables that affect its magnitude. Comparing the birefringent noise between the two cryogenic reference cavities reveals a phenomenological set of scalings with intracavity power and mode area. We implement an interrogation scheme that cancels this noise by simultaneous probing of both polarization modes. The residual noise remaining after this cancellation is larger than both cavities' thermal noise limits but still lower than the instabilities previously measured on equivalent resonators with dielectric coatings. Though the source of these noise mechanisms is unclear, we demonstrate that crystalline coatings can provide stability and sensitivity competitive with resonators employing dielectric coatings.
External Organisation(s): JILA
National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB)
University of Glasgow
Type: Article
Journal: OPTICA
Volume: 10
Pages: 464-470
No. of pages: 7
ISSN: 2334-2536
Publication date: 20.04.2023
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.479462 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{fa60e9edb8d14e93a246181078bb5c17,
title = "Frequency stability of cryogenic silicon cavities with semiconductor crystalline coatings",
abstract = "State-of-the-art optical oscillators employing cryogenic reference cavities are limited in performance by the Brownian thermal noise associated with the mechanical dissipation of the mirror coatings.Recently, crystalline Al1-xGaxAs=GaAs coatings have emerged as a promising candidate for improved coating thermal noise.We present measurements of the frequency noise of two fully crystalline cryogenic reference cavities with Al0.92Ga0.08As=GaAs optical coatings. We report on birefringent noise associated with anticorrelated frequency fluctuations between the polarization modes of the crystalline coatings and identify variables that affect its magnitude. Comparing the birefringent noise between the two cryogenic reference cavities reveals a phenomenological set of scalings with intracavity power and mode area. We implement an interrogation scheme that cancels this noise by simultaneous probing of both polarization modes. The residual noise remaining after this cancellation is larger than both cavities' thermal noise limits but still lower than the instabilities previously measured on equivalent resonators with dielectric coatings. Though the source of these noise mechanisms is unclear, we demonstrate that crystalline coatings can provide stability and sensitivity competitive with resonators employing dielectric coatings.",
author = "Dhruv Kedar and Jialiang Yu and Eric Oelker and Alexander Staron and Milner, {William R.} and Robinson, {John M.} and Thomas Legero and Fritz Riehle and Uwe Sterr and Jun Ye",
note = "Funding information: Funding. National Institute of Standards and Technology; Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; Air Force Research Laboratory; National Science Foundation (PHY-1734006); European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (20FUN08 NEXTLASERS); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (274200144, 390837967). Acknowledgment. The authors thank T. Brown and A. Ellzey for technical assistance, A. M. Kaufman and V. Sch{\"a}fer for careful reading of the manuscript, and G. Cole and J. Hall for insightful discussions. Ji. Y, T. L., F. R., and U. S. acknowledge support from Project 20FUN08 NEXTLASERS, which has received funding from the EMPIR programme co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. ",
year = "2023",
month = apr,
day = "20",
doi = "10.1364/OPTICA.479462",
language = "English",
volume = "10",
pages = "464--470",
journal = "OPTICA",
issn = "2334-2536",
publisher = "OSA Publishing",
number = "4",
}