Abstract
We report the main features and performances of a prototype of an ultra-stable cavity designed and realized by industry for space applications with the aim of space missions. The cavity is a 100 mm long cylinder rigidly held at its midplane by a engineered mechanical interface providing an efficient decoupling from thermal and vibration perturbations. Intensive finite element modeling was performed in order to optimize thermal and vibration sensitivities while getting a high fundamental resonance frequency. The system was designed to be transportable, acceleration tolerant (up to several g) and temperature range compliant [-33°C ; 73°C]. Thermal isolation is ensured by gold coated Aluminum shields inside a stainless steel enclosure for vacuum. The axial vibration sensitivity was evaluated at (4 ± 0.5) × 10(-11)/(m.s(-2)), while the transverse one is < 1 × 10(-11)/(m.s(-2)). The fractional frequency instability is </~ 1×10(-15) from 0.1 to a few seconds and reaches 5-6×10(-16) at 1s.
Highlights
Ultra-stable lasers are key elements in modern physics covering a wide range of applications in frequency metrology [1,2,3,4,5], gravitational wave detection [6], fundamental physics tests [7, 8], coherent optical links [9, 10] and related space applications [11]
We report the main features and performances of a prototype of an ultra-stable cavity designed and realized by industry for space applications with the aim of space missions
The cavity is a 100 mm long cylinder rigidly held at its midplane by a engineered mechanical interface providing an efficient decoupling from thermal and vibration perturbations
Summary
Ultra-stable lasers are key elements in modern physics covering a wide range of applications in frequency metrology [1,2,3,4,5], gravitational wave detection [6], fundamental physics tests [7, 8], coherent optical links [9, 10] and related space applications [11]. The ultimate fundamental limit of this system is the thermal noise (Brownian motion) that can be minimized by optimizing the choice of the cavity materials and geometry [12,13,14] and reducing the cavity temperature with cryogenic techniques [15]. A number of applications require an ultra-stable laser available for use in a non-laboratory environment [8, 11] Most of these cavities have been designed with a laboratory in view and making them compatible with transport and space requirements involves a major redesign of the cavity and its assembly. In this aim, significant progress towards cavity designs with low vibration sensitivity [20], transportability [21] and robustness [22] has been achieved.
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