An elegant breadboard of the optical bench for eLISA/NGO
conference paper
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, as well as its reformulated European-only evolution, the New Gravitational- Wave Observatory, both employ heterodyne laser interferometry on million kilometer scale arm lengths in a triangular spacecraft formation, to observe gravitational waves at frequencies between 3 × 10 −5 Hz and 1 Hz. The Optical Bench as central payload element realizes both the inter-spacecraft as well as local laser metrology with respect to inertial proof masses, and provides further functions, such as point-ahead accommodation, acquisition sensing, transmit beam conditioning, optical power monitoring, and laser redundancy switching. These functions have been combined in a detailed design of an Optical Bench Elegant Breadboard, which is currently under assembly and integration. We present an overview of the realization and current performances of the Optical Bench subsystems, which employ ultraprecise piezo mechanism, ultrastable assembly techniques, and shot noise limited RF detection to achieve translation and tilt metrology at Picometer and Nanoradian noise levels.
Topics
TNO Identifier
784944
ISSN
0277786X
ISBN
9781510616172
Publisher
SPIE
Article nr.
105640I
Source title
International Conference on Space Optics, ICSO 2012, 9-12 October 2012, Ajaccio, Corse, France
Editor(s)
Armandillo, E.
Cugny, B.
Karafolas, N.
Cugny, B.
Karafolas, N.
Collation
11 p.
Files
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