Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 15: Poster: Quantum Optics and Photonics I
Q 15.73: Poster
Monday, March 23, 2015, 17:00–19:00, C/Foyer
Laser Frequency Stabilisation for the AEI 10 m Prototype Interferometer — •Manuela Hanke — Albert-Einstein-Institut Hannover
The 10 m Prototype facility, currently being set up at the AEI Hannover, will provide a testbed for very sensitive interferometric experiments. One ambitious goal of this project is to reach and subsequently even surpass the standard quantum limit in a detection band around 200 Hz with a 10 m arm length Michelson interferometer. In order to pursue such an avenue, the laser source must be extremely well stabilised. The laser source was chosen to be one of the 35 W lasers used to drive the km-scale gravitational wave observatories, LIGO and GEO 600. A fully suspended triangular ring cavity of finesse ca. 3000 will be used as a frequency reference for the stabilisation of the laser. The aim of this project, the so-called frequency reference cavity, is to reach a level of laser frequency fluctuations of better than 10−5 Hz/sqrt(Hz) in the detection band, centered around 200 Hz. Therefore we need to reduce the frequency noise by a factor of 107. The main goal is to make a sufficiently stabilised laser beam available for the AEI 10 m Prototype Interferometer, with a duty cycle that is not limiting the operation of the core instrument by any means. In my presentation I will show the motivation for a frequency stabilisation and present the layout and the current status of the reference cavity.