Those in sensor development have all done it: squeeze out that one nice result by tweaking and babysitting. The next day, the sensor would need re-calibrating or re-alignment. This proposal is all about taking the best-performing sensing and control techniques and combine them into horizontal and vertical inertial sensor concepts that we will then take to the next level: compact, robust and ultra-precise inertial sensors.
The semiconductor industry needs faster and more accurate machines that move much less that the ground they stand on. Einstein Telescope (ET) needs a good base platform from which to hang its mirrors or support its optical tables. The CHiPS project will develop advanced inertial sensors the size of a coffee cup and [a factor 10 to a factor 1000 more sensitive than current technology in between 10 mHz and 250 Hz] or [extreme performance]. They will provide superior error signals for the actively isolating platforms at ASML and ET. No chance for tweaking and babysitting!
About Joris van Heijningen
Joris van Heijningen is Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and co-chair of the auxiliary optics suspensions sub-division in the Einstein Telescope Instrument Science Board and deputy work package leader of the ETpathfinder optics suspensions. In 2018, he achieved an 8 fm/√Hz sensitivity from 30 Hz to 100 Hz with a room-temperature, interferometrically readout Watt’s linkage. That sensor was tested on a optical table suspended by the MultiSAS, which is now suspending a sensor testbed at Nikhef. His current work involves adjustments of the Watt’s linkage design to make a niobium version manufacturable. His previous work on vibration isolation stages for Advanced Virgo bring expertise on sensor test-bed set-up to this consortium.
About Conor Mow-Lowry
Conor Mow-Lowry is an Associate Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Nikhef. He develops new instrumentation funded by an ERC Consolidator grant to enable the Einstein Telescope to reach its low-frequency sensitivity, allowing observations of heavier objects deep in cosmological time. Mow-Lowry has developed compact interferometric sensors that are seen by the community as a necessity for all future gravitational-wave detectors and are the basis for the optical configuration of the interferometric readout of this proposal. His broad expertise has put him in an ideal position for leading the “Active Noise Mitigation” division of the Einstein Telescope.
Read more about the consortia: https://www.nwo.nl/en/news/6-studies-will-launch-to-develop-next-generation-high-tech-technology