Diffractive beam splitter characterization via a power-recycled interferometer

We used the high-precision laser interferometer technique of power recycling to characterize the optical loss of an all-reflective grating beam splitter. This beam splitter was used to set up a Michelson interferometer with a power-recycling resonator with a finesse of 883. Analyzing the results obtained, we determined the beam splitter's total optical loss to be (0.193± 0.019)%. Low loss all-reflective beam splitters might find application in future high-power laser interferometers for the detection of gravitational waves. © 2008 Optical Society of America.