Indication for dominating surface absorption in crystalline silicon test masses at 1550 nm

The sensitivity of future gravitational wave (GW) observatories will be limited by thermal noise in a wide frequency band. To reduce thermal noise, the European GW observatory Einstein GW Telescope (ET) is suggested to use crystalline silicon test masses at cryogenic temperature and a laser wavelength of 1550 nm. Here, we report a measurement of the optical loss in a prototype high-resistivity crystalline silicon test mass as a function of optical intensity at room temperature. The total loss from both the bulk crystal and the surfaces was determined in a joint measurement. The characterization window ranged from small intensities below 1 W cm−2, as planned to be used in ET, up to 21 kW cm−2. A nonlinear absorption was observed for intensities above a few kW cm−2. In addition, we have observed an intensity-independent offset that possibly arises from absorption in the crystal surfaces. This absorption was estimated to αsurf ≈ 800  ppm/surface, which might be too high for a cryogenic operation of a fiber-suspended silicon test mass. Such an offset was not observed in other recent measurements that were insensitive to surface absorption. Finally, a set of further characterization measurements is proposed to clearly separate the contributions from the surfaces and the bulk crystal. (paper)