Mechanical Metamaterial Applications for LIGO Mirror Noise Evasion

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Abstract:: This project studies metamaterials for filtering mechanical vibration between 10Hz and 1kHz. We are interested in designing a metamaterial layer that can mechanically isolate a silicon disk while maintaining thermal contact. Such a system will enable accurate high-Q measurements of silicon at cryogenic temperatures, which are necessary for characterizing the test mass noise in next-generation gravitational detectors such as LIGO Voyager. Silicon metamaterials comprised of locally resonant structures are explored for producing bandgaps in the frequency range of the silicon disk modes, with analytical and numerical studies conducted on various resonant structure candidates. Finite element analysis done on a combination of these structures shows promising filtering behaviors. Future work for this project will involve fabricating and testing of candidate isolation systems. The metamaterial studies can potentially also be applied to LIGO noise evasion, including the filtering of parametric instabilities in the test masses and seismic noise isolation.

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LIGO Document T1900386-v2