High Throughput Structure Determination for Low Thermal Noise Coatings

该奖项支持相对论和相对论天体物理学的研究，并解决了NSF“宇宙之窗”大理念的优先领域。现在，先进的LIGO和先进的Virgo干涉仪每周对合并黑洞和中子星的引力波进行观测，这代表了天体物理学的新时代，由四年前的第一次探测启动。除了计划中的未来几代国际引力波天文台之外，计划中的高级LIGO升级将寻求扩大探测器的范围，并在引力波天文学中实现进一步的发现。然而，所有未来的探测器升级和概念都依赖于开发新的镜面涂层材料来降低热噪声。斯坦福大学的PI小组致力于理论和实验研究，以更好地了解非晶涂层的结构，以帮助指导寻找具有较低热噪声的改进涂层。 这项研究计划将显著提高我们与斯坦福大学同步辐射实验室（SSRL）科学家合作收集原子结构数据的能力，并将加快我们寻找热噪声较低的涂层材料的能力。最近的进展，在确定较低的热噪声涂层已经实现了通过X射线散射方法在SSRL的非晶氧化物薄膜的原子结构的测定。这些数据被用作分子动力学建模的实验输入，以研究原子结构，确定涂层热噪声的机制，并确定减少其影响的方法。拟议的计划解决了与SLAC国家加速器实验室的合作者一起开发的机会，SSRL的改进光束线，并由此启动高通量掠入射X射线对分布函数（GIPDF）该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得支持的，使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

This award supports research in relativity and relativistic astrophysics and it addresses the priority areas of NSF's "Windows on the Universe" Big Idea. The now weekly observations of gravitational waves from coalescing black holes and neutron stars by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo interferometers represent a new era of astrophysics, launched by the first detection four years ago. Planned upgrades to Advanced LIGO, in addition to planned future generations of international gravitational wave observatories, will seek to extend the range of the detectors and enable further discoveries within gravitational wave astronomy. However, all future detector upgrades and concepts rely on the development of new mirror coating materials to reduce thermal noise. The PI's group at Stanford has efforts devoted to theoretical and experimental studies to develop a better understanding of the structure of amorphous coatings to help guide the search for improved coatings with lower thermal noise. This research program will significantly enhance our ability to collect atomic structure data at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) in collaboration with SSRL scientists, and will accelerate our ability to find coating materials with lower thermal noise. Recent progress in determining lower thermal noise coatings has been realized from the determination of the atomic structure of amorphous oxide films through X-ray scattering methods at SSRL. This data is used as experimental input to molecular dynamics modeling to study the atomic structure, identify the mechanisms responsible for coating thermal noise, and identify ways of reducing their effects. The proposed program addresses the opportunity to develop, in conjunction with collaborators at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, an improved beamline at SSRL and with it initiate high-throughput Grazing-Incidence X-ray Pair Distribution Function (GIPDF) measurements to speed the rate at which we can recover structural information on new coating materials.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.