High speed, high power 2D beam steering for mitigation of optomechanical parametric instability in gravitational wave detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid, high-power 2D beam steering system using acousto-optic modulators and software-defined radio technology to mitigate optomechanical parametric instability in gravitational wave detectors.

Contribution

It presents a novel 2D beam steering approach with high speed and power handling, enabling effective control of optomechanical instability in GW detectors.

Findings

Achieved 50 ns transition time between deflections.

Demonstrated flat efficiency across the scan range.

Handled beam power of 3.6 W effectively.

Abstract

In this paper we propose a novel strategy to control optomechanical parametric instability (PI) in gravitational wave (GW) detectors, based on radiation pressure. The fast deflection of a high power beam is the key element of our approach. We built a 2D deflection system based on a pair of acousto-optic modulators (AOMs) that combines high rapidity and large scan range. As fast frequency switching configurable AOM driver we used an Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) combined with a high performance personal computer (PC). In this way we demonstrate a 2D beam steering system with flat efficiency over the whole scan range and with a transition time of 50 ns between two arbitrary consecutive deflection positions for a beam power of 3.6 W.