Characterizing 1550 nm optical components down to 8 K

Abstract

Thermal noise sources are relevant for future gravitational wave detectors due to the foreseen increase in sensitivity, especially at frequencies below

. As most thermal noise sources scale with the square root of the temperature, cooling critical optical components and their suspension system is essential. This also requires a much wider range of temperature compatibility from all technology deployed in the last suspension stages, including displacement and inertial sensors. We demonstrate and characterize a setup for stable light sources and light intensity sensing for temperatures from 300 to

. Commercial collimators and fibers were tested to use light from stabilized laser sources in the cryogenic environment. We also investigated multiple semiconductor compositions of photodiodes and identified a solution with high and stable responsivity at

.