62 Overview of the squeezing vacuum source

0.16

0.14 P IR=0.165 W

0.12

0.1
green

0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02

0
298 300 302 304 306 308 310 312 3
T (K)

Figure 4.8: Produced green power at different crystal temperature with fixed fundamental input
power [45].

4.2.3 Efficiency measurement

The SHG cavity is aligned as described in M. Leonardi thesis. After this alig-
ment, the obtained mode matching between the fundamental field and the cavity is
about 94 %. This is measured when the crystal temperature is set in order to have
a negligible conversion efficiency. The mode matching is measured in the following
way: the cavity length is scanned for more than two free spectral ranges (FSRs),
the transmitted light is acquired, each Airy peak is fitted and the mode matching is
computed as the ratio between the area of TEM00 peak and the total area of a FSR.
The SHG conversion efficiency is defined has the ratio between the power of the
generated green field P2ω and the fundamental power Pω , normalized by the mode
matching at SHG input [47]:
P2ω
ǫ= .
Pω
The SHG efficiency curve is measured with a fixed crystal temperature at 304.6 K and
varying the fundamental input power in the range between 60 and 400 mW. Fig. 4.9
shows the conversion efficiency of the SHG cavity and the produced harmonic power as
function of the fundamental input field. The conversion efficiency reaches a top value
of (99 ± 1(stat.) ± 3(syst.) %), producing 324 mW in the harmonic green field with 326
mW input IR pump field. The systematic error in the efficiency measurement is due
to the calibration error of the used power meter. Data above 0.35 W show a marked
decrease of conversion ratio. This is caused by another competitive nonlinear process
4.3 Green mode cleaner resonator 63

SHG conversion efficiency

1.1 0.35

1 0.3

0.9 0.25
Conversion Efficiency

Harmonic Power [W]

0.8 0.2

0.7 0.15

0.6 0.1

Efficiency
Harmonic power
0.5 0.05
0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45
Fundamental Power [W]

Figure 4.9: Conversion efficiency of SHG cavity at fixed temperature 304.6 K for different IR input
power.

that limits the green power produced. This process is the degenerate subharmonic
pumped parametric down conversion and occurs when the input power is larger than
a threshold that is expected at about 0.34 mW [45] [48] [49]. In conclusion the green
power produced by SHG cavity respects the requirement needed by the pump field
of the OPO cavity.

4.3 Green mode cleaner resonator

Once generated, the green pump field is filtered by a travelling wave resonator,
the green mode cleaner (MCG), in order to suppress the high order modes. The MCG
is a triangular Fabry Perot optical cavity, designed by the INFN Napoli group, that
is installed along the green light path as close as possible to the OPO cavity, with
the following purposes:

• it acts as a low pass filter for the green field amplitude and phase noise. It has
a roll-off frequency of fc equal to the cavity half-width at half-maximum;

• it acts as a spatial mode filter, i.e. its transmitted beam mode contents is prin-
cipally composed by the TEM00 mode while the high order modes are reflected
64 Overview of the squeezing vacuum source

by the cavity.

Figure 4.10: Photo of the green mode cleaner installed on the bench.

Fig. 4.10 is a picture of MCG installed on the squeezer bench. Its input and
output mirrors are two plano-plano super-polished mirrors with power reflectivity
R = 0.995, whereas the third mirror is plano-concave mirror with radius of curvature
of 1 m and power reflectivity R1 = 0.9998. The mirrors are assembled on a monolithic
Invar3 holder. This monolithic design and the material are adopted to ensure high
mechanical stability and small length fluctuations due to thermal variations. The
Invar spacer is designed to have a round trip length of 582.29 mm. Due to these optical
and geometrical choices, the resulting MCG cavity has the following properties: its
free spectral range is 514 MHz, its finesse is F = 613 and the FWHM is 841 kHz
both for s-polarized input beam. The cavity beam waist is 277 µm [44]. The cavity
is locked on the green beam at frequency 2ω0 actuating on a piezoelectric element
mechanically connected to the concave mirror.
Fig. 4.11 shows the optical and control system layout of the squeezer green pump
stabilization. As said in the introduction to this chapter, the green beam stabilization
is performed by two active optical elements: the MCG cavity and the MZ interfer-
ometer that will be described in the next section. The control scheme evinces that
the control loop of the MCG cavity and MZ interferometer are closed in cascade:
the green power is stabilized by the MZ using as error signal the detected light by
the photodetector P DM CG2 . This choice means that the MZ interferometer must be
locked after the MCG cavity.
The MCG cavity is locked, as SHG, exploiting the PDH technique. The green in-
put beam is phase modulated with an home made EOM which is resonant at 30 MHz.
3
Invar or s FeNi36 is a nickel-iron alloy that shows a remarkably low coefficient of thermal expan-
sion α = 1.2 × 10−6 K−1
4.4 Green pump power stabilization 65

MCG PD2 MCG PD 1

PBS 90:10
TO OPO

UDSPT
SERVO

SERVO
FROM SHG

MCG
HWP1

HWP2

EOM
MZ

Figure 4.11: Optical scheme of the MCG cavity and MZ interferometer integrated in the optical
bench

The modulator is realized by the optic and the electronic groups of EGO staff. The
PDH error signal is detected by the photodetector M CGP D1 placed in reflection from
the cavity. This is a Si photodiode mounted on circuit equipped by an RF trans-
impedance amplifier and a mixer used to signal demodulation. The signals used to
drive the EOM and as LO for the demodulation, both at 30 MHz, are generated by
the same DDS board. The PDH loop is provided by an auto-locking procedure based
on the signal detected by photodiode M CGP D2 . This photodetector is feed by the
10% of the MCG transmission beam extracted through a 90/10 BS.

4.4 Green pump power stabilization

This squeezer prototype is thought to be permanently employed in a gravitational

wave observatory, therefore the generated degree of squeezing/antisqueezing must be
stable on the timescale of months. According to Eq. 3.28 the squeezing/antisqueezing
level depends on the pump power injected in the OPO cavity. Therefore a fluctuation
of the harmonic power causes a variation on the produced squeezing level. The main
source of green field power fluctuations are the fluctuations of the ML power used to
pump the SHG cavity. In fact ML is not power stabilized thus the power variations
of the 532 nm field are directly coupled to the ones of the 1064 nm field. Thus, the
66 Overview of the squeezing vacuum source

long term stability of the squeezing level is provided by inserting a Mach-Zehnder

interferometer, between the SHG and the MCG cavities, with the aim to control the
pump level power injected into the OPO cavity.

4.4.1 Squeezing degree as function of the pump power

The fluctuations of the pump power has two consequences: first the squeezing/anti-
squeezing variances depend on the ratio between the injected pump power and the
OPO threshold power (see Eq. 3.28); second it induces thermal effects on the nonlin-
ear crystal that cause a detuning of the s-polarized beam inside the squeezing cavity.
Fig. 4.12 shows how the squeezing and antisqueezing level produced varies, accord-
ing to Eq. 3.28. For example, when the pump power changes of ±5%: the maximum
variation of the squeezing level is less than 0.3 dB whereas the antisqueezing varies less
than 1.2 dB therefore this effect is negligible in the long term fluctuations analysis.
20
Squeezing degree
Antisqueezing degree

15

10
Normalized Amplitude

-5

-10
0 5 10 15 20 25
Frequency [MHz]

Figure 4.12: Simulation of the squeezing and anti-squeezing generated degree as function of the
detection frequency. The pump power level chosen is an half of the threshold power. Squeezing is
represented by violet line, whereas antisqueezing by orange line. Green lines indicates the effect of a
±5% fluctuation of the pump power.

In the following the thermal effects induced by green pump fluctuations are briefly
described. For a deeper description of these phenomena the reader is addressed to
reference [39]. The nonlinear crystal has a non negligible absorption coefficient at
532 nm , therefore a power change induces a temperature variation of the medium.
This has several consequences: