Simulation of force-insensitive optical cavities in cubic spacers

Abstract

We analyze the properties of optical cavities contained in spacers with approximate octahedral symmetry and made of different materials, following the design of Webster and Gill (Opt Lett 36:3572, 2011). We show that, for isotropic materials with Young’s modulus less than 200 GPa, the Poisson’s ratio $\nu$ must lie in a “magic” range $0.13<\nu <0.23$ to null the influence of the forces supporting the spacer. This restriction can be overcome with the use of anisotropic materials such as silicon. A detailed study aiming at identification of all suitable crystal orientations of silicon with respect to the resonator body is performed, and the relation to the Poisson’s ratio and the Young’s modulus along these orientations is discussed. We also perform an analysis of the sensitivity of the cavity performance to errors in spacer manufacturing. We find that the orientation of the [110] or [100] crystallographic directions oriented along one of the three optical axes of the resonator provides low sensitivities to imprecise manufacturing and interesting options for fundamental physics experiments.