Discharging fused silica optics occluded by an electrostatic drive

Charge accumulation on test masses is a potentially limiting noise source for gravitational-wave interferometers, and may occur due to exposure to an electrostatic drive (ESD) in modern test mass suspensions. We verify that an ESD can cause charge accumulation on a fused silica test mass at a rate o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inReview of scientific instruments Vol. 85; no. 3; p. 034502
Main Authors Ugolini, D, Fitzgerald, C, Rothbarth, I, Wang, J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.03.2014
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Summary:Charge accumulation on test masses is a potentially limiting noise source for gravitational-wave interferometers, and may occur due to exposure to an electrostatic drive (ESD) in modern test mass suspensions. We verify that an ESD can cause charge accumulation on a fused silica test mass at a rate of 8 × 10(-16) C/cm(2)/h. We also demonstrate a charge mitigation system consisting of a stream of nitrogen ionized by copper feedthrough pins at 3750 VAC. We demonstrate that the system can neutralize positive and negative charge from 10(-11) C/cm(2) to 3 × 10(-14) C/cm(2) in under 2 h.
ISSN:1089-7623
DOI:10.1063/1.4867248