Novel supermirrors offer improved medical diagnoses and sensing
25 May 2021
University of Vienna project develops optical coatings with record-low losses in mid-infrared.
Supermirrors are mirror components capable of very high reflectivities and very low optical losses, behavior usually achieved through forms of specialized surface coatings or treatment.
Thorlabs existing range of crystalline supermirrors, said to demonstrate reflectance greater than 99.99 percent in near-IR wavelengths, are manufactured using molecular beam epitaxy, and designed for use in applications such as optical atomic clocks.
This kind of mirror technology also plays a key role in the enhanced sensitivity of the LIGO project watching for gravitational waves.
Crystalline Super Mirrors For Trace Gas Detection In Medicine And Environmental Sciences
In an international cooperation with partners from industry and research, physicists from the University of Vienna, together with Thorlabs, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Kansas, succeeded for the first time in creating high-power laser mirrors in the important wavelength range of demonstrate mid-infrared, which absorb less than ten out of a million photons. Manufactured in a new process based on crystalline materials, these low-loss mirrors promise completely new fields of application, for example in optical respiratory gas analysis for early cancer detection or the detection of greenhouse gases. The work on this will be published in the current issue of the journal Optica .
Ultralow-Loss Mirrors Boost Spectroscopy, Detection | Research & Technology | May 2021 photonics.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from photonics.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.