17–23 May 2026
Hotel Hermitage, La Biodola, Isola d'Elba
Europe/Rome timezone

Low-loss dielectric metasurface mirror for precision optical cavities in the near-infrared

20 May 2026, 11:00
18m
Hotel Hermitage, La Biodola, Isola d'Elba

Hotel Hermitage, La Biodola, Isola d'Elba

Presentation Thermal noise Thermal Noise

Speaker

Swadha Pandey (MIT)

Description

We present the design and experimental demonstration of a sub-percent loss dielectric metasurface mirror operating at 1064 nm, the wavelength used in current gravitational wave interferometers. The titanium dioxide nanopillar array on a glass substrate achieves high reflectivity using a single layer. The mirror operates via guided-mode resonance in a periodic dielectric structure designed for normal incidence. Unlike conventional multilayer coatings, the resonant metasurface offers the possibility of substantially reduced coating thermal noise by eliminating thick high/low index stacks. These results establish dielectric metasurfaces as a viable candidate mirror platform for future gravitational wave detectors and other precision measurement experiments limited by coating thermal noise.

Author

Swadha Pandey (MIT)

Co-authors

Matthew Evans (MIT) Peter Fritschel (M.I.T.)

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