Design and Development of an Ultralow Optical Loss Mirror Coating for Zerodur Substrate

Abstract

A high reflectance mirror, which has very low absorption and scattering loss, was coated onto a crystalline substrate by ion beam sputtering and then annealed at <TEX>$450^{\circ}C$</TEX>. We carefully selected the mirror coating material, and designed the high reflectance mirror, in order to avoid UV degradation which comes from the He-Ne plasma. We measured the surface roughness of the Zerodur substrate using phase shift interferometry and atomic force microscopy, and compared it with the TIS scattering of the mirror. The cavity ring-down method was used to measure the absorption of the mirror, and the thin film structure was correlated to its results. We also compared the optical properties of coated mirrors before and after annealing.