The exceptional stability required from high finesse optical cavities and high precision interferometers is fundamentally limited by Brownian motion noise in the interference coatings of the cavity mirrors. In amorphous oxide coatings these thermally driven fluctuations are dominant in the high index layer compared to those in the low index SiO2layer in the stack. We present a systematic study of the evolution of the structural and optical properties of ion beam sputtered TiO2-doped Ta2O5films with annealing temperature. We show that low mechanical loss in TiO2-doped Ta2O5with a Ti cation ratio = 0.27 is associated with a material that consists of a homogeneous titanium-tantalum-oxygen mixture containing a low density of nanometer sized Ar-filled voids. When the Ti cation ratio is 0.53, phase separation occurs leading to increased mechanical loss. These results suggest that amorphous mixed oxides with low mechanical loss could be identified by considering the thermodynamics of ternary phase formation.
In order for optical cavities to enable strong light-matter interactions for quantum metrology, networking, and scalability in quantum computing systems, their mirrors must have minimal losses. However, high-finesse dielectric cavity mirrors can degrade in ultra-high vacuum (UHV), increasing the challenges of upgrading to cavity-coupled quantum systems. We observe the optical degradation of high-finesse dielectric optical cavity mirrors after high-temperature UHV bake in the form of a substantial increase in surface roughness. We provide an explanation of the degradation through atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), selective wet etching, and optical measurements. We find the degradation is explained by oxygen reduction in Ta2O5followed by growth of tantalum sub-oxide defects with height to width aspect ratios near ten. We discuss the dependence of mirror loss on surface roughness and finally give recommendations to avoid degradation to allow for quick adoption of cavity-coupled systems.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10473155
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Optics Express
- Volume:
- 31
- Issue:
- 24
- ISSN:
- 1094-4087; OPEXFF
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 39670
- Size(s):
- ["Article No. 39670"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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