The Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow have secured funding to develop novel hybrid amorphous-crystalline project funded by STFC.
The project will be the first experimental/manufacturing demonstration of the work published by Glasgow (Steinlechner et al.) which proposes the use of hybrid crystal and amorphous coatings for reducing the Brownian thermal noise in future gravitational wave observatories. The technology is expected to have significant benefits to the UK photonics industry, particular for applications requiring improved laser damage threshold in addition to environmental robustness.
References
Steinlechner, J., Martin, I. W., Hough, J., Krüger, C., Rowan, S., and Schnabel, R. (2015) Thermal noise reduction and absorption optimization via multimaterial coatings. Physical Review D, 91(4). 042001.
