Speaker
Description
The ETpathfinder research facility in Maastricht is dedicated to developing key technologies for the Einstein Telescope (ET). By implementing these in a 10 m prototype cryogenic interferometer, the facility aims to investigate and validate their performance and compatibility within an ET-like environment.
One such technology is a novel 1550 nm laser source, developed by the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and Leibniz University Hannover. The system delivers up to 7 W of output power with stabilised frequency and power, and incorporates optical spatial filtering, polarisation filtering, and pointing stabilisation.
The laser is currently being commissioned and characterised in the ETpathfinder facility to prepare its injection system. An extra mode-cleaning cavity, mounted on a suspended optical bench within the vacuum system, is used to suppress low-frequency noise and to provide a stable frequency reference.
In this poster we explain the different components of the pre-stabilised laser, the optical layout of the current testbench of the injection system into the vacuum system and we will present some preliminary results achieved before and after the addition of this extra mode-cleaning cavity.
The results of these studies will contribute to the development and qualification of future laser sources for next-generation gravitational-wave detectors.