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  • Low Mechanical Loss TiO2 : ...
    Vajente, Gabriele; Yang, Le; Davenport, Aaron; Fazio, Mariana; Ananyeva, Alena; Zhang, Liyuan; Billingsley, Garilynn; Prasai, Kiran; Markosyan, Ashot; Bassiri, Riccardo; Fejer, Martin M; Chicoine, Martin; Schiettekatte, François; Menoni, Carmen S

    Physical review letters, 08/2021, Volume: 127, Issue: 7
    Journal Article

    The sensitivity of current and planned gravitational wave interferometric detectors is limited, in the most critical frequency region around 100 Hz, by a combination of quantum noise and thermal noise. The latter is dominated by Brownian noise: thermal motion originating from the elastic energy dissipation in the dielectric coatings used in the interferometer mirrors. The energy dissipation is a material property characterized by the mechanical loss angle. We have identified mixtures of titanium dioxide ( TiO2 ) and germanium dioxide ( GeO2 ) that show internal dissipations at a level of 1 × 10−4, low enough to provide improvement of almost a factor of 2 on the level of Brownian noise with respect to the state-of-the-art materials. We show that by using a mixture of 44% TiO2 and 56% GeO2 in the high refractive index layers of the interferometer mirrors, it would be possible to achieve a thermal noise level in line with the design requirements. These results are a crucial step forward to produce the mirrors needed to meet the thermal noise requirements for the planned upgrades of the Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and Virgo detectors.