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Experimental Physics
Institute of
Experimental Physics

Photo: UHH/C.Darsow-Fromm

Inst. of Experimental Physics

Labs & Infrastructure

The reserach group operates and contributes to a number of dedicated laboratories and local infrastructures for gravitational wave detection research.

Laboratory highlights:

  • Space Lab: Laboratory with precision temperature stabilisation and two small vacuum chambers to simulate the conditions in space and lunar-based gravitational wave detectors.
  • Scatter Lab: Laboratory with a cleanroom tent above a large optical table (1.5m x 3.6m) to conduct experiments on scattered light reduction in ground-based gravitational wave detectors.
  • Ground Lab: Laboratory with seismically isolated vacuum chamber VATIGrav (see below) under a cleanroom tent to develop and test sensors, suspensions, isolation systems and control schemes for ground-based gravitational wave detectors.
  • Optical Preparation: Cleanroon to clean, assemble, and prepare parts for vacuum and cleanroom usage.
  • Electronic workshop: Development and testing of low-noise analogue and digital electronics for e.g. photoreceivers.

The VATIGrav vacuum facility

A 6-ton vacuum chamber with active isolation of the chamber via 4 feet, each one with 3-axis piezo position control. In the chamber an optical breadboad is again isolated and suspended by 4 passive spring systems. The optical breadboard can support payloads up to 250kg and has a size of 1.4m x 0.9m with a free height of about 1.2m. Large doors enable simple installation of mechanics, electronics and optics. Various feedthroughts are available as well. Seismometers are available on ground, on the chamber and in vacuum, on the optical breadboard, to determine isolation performance and to enable comparison measurements with e.g. deployed inertial sensors. A vacuum level below 10^-5 mbar is regularly achieved. Digital readout and control electronics are also available. VATIGrav was funded by the University of Hamburg/State of Hamburg and the DFG, Project No. 455096128.

If you are interested to use VATIGrav for e.g. testing sensors please contact us. 

The WAVE seismic network

We are one of the founding members of the Hamburg WAVE seismic network initiative (www.wave-hamburg.eu) and support the continued operation, extension and scientific investigation of a distributed acoustic sensing network on our research campus with colleagues from e.g. DESY.