Equipment for advanced optical coatings and materials research, characterisation and development for gravitational wave detectors and beyond

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

There are several groups who will benefit directly from this area of our research, that is the investigation in materials and optical coatings for GW detectors and different interferometry wavelengths and topologies. The position of the UK as a leading scientific nation will be enhanced by the output from this research and its subsequent impact on the field of GW detection. The proposed research will also ensure that the group continues to be seen as leading coating development within the LIGO collaboration and providing strong UK input to the field. The academics and other researchers within the group will benefit from this in the same way. Furthermore, the research output in terms of low loss and low absorption coatings would directly benefit the fields of optical frequency standards and optical clocks by allowing better short-term stability of the optical resonators used in those devices. Lower mechanical loss coatings could also benefit areas such as cavity quantum optics, allowing longer coherence times due to lower dissipation.
There are many examples of our track record on impact. On the experimental front, laser frequency stabilisation technology developed in Glasgow and JILA for GW detectors is used in every laboratory in the world where atomic spectroscopy is being carried out or atomic clocks are being built and operated. Silicate bonding technology developed for GEO600 in collaboration with Stanford University from the method employed in Gravity Probe B, has proved crucial to the European space agency for LISA Pathfinder, the demonstrator experiment for LISA, and has been transferred to industry in the UK through a KTP grant, with ongoing development with industry taking place under a European ITN grant. The same bonding technology, also now patented by us in Glasgow for application to silicon carbide, together with the research in ultra-low mechanical noise coatings may have application in the improvement of the noise levels of the stabilising cavities for sophisticated atomic clock systems. Vibration isolation is another area where significant developments have been made by us for the GW experiments and these techniques have influenced colleagues at Johns Hopkins Medical School in vibration reduction work for MRI imaging systems. Further, in the medical arena, interferometric and FEA techniques used within GW detectors are now being employed within cell biology for controlling the differentiation (fate) of stem cells, an area which is of potential benefit for growing autologous bone graft from a patient's own cells, in addition to the treatment of osteoporosis and bone fractures.
The design and modelling of optical mirror coatings is being translated into the design and fabrication of precise IR transmission filters for enhancing CO2 gas sensors, with a particular focus for use within medical capnography and anaesthetics.
Research results will be disseminated in weekly tele/video conferences within the collaboration; regular working group and collaboration meetings; conferences; publications and seminars both in the UK and globally. Finally, PhD students and PRDAs who were trained under STFC grants in this area have subsequently moved to other research institutions, including Caltech, MIT, Stanford University, NIKHEF (Holland), NIST (Gaithersburg) University of Maryland, the Albert Einstein Institute (Hannover and Golm), the University of Birmingham and the Australian National University.