Dedicated oven for optical resonator heating process

To improve the quality of optical resonator's fabrication, an important step consists in performing an annealing process up to 600 degrees C. It improves the roughness of resonator's surface down to the nanometer scale. Concretely it helps in reducing stresses at the periphery of their surface thus allowing higher Q -factors. Mechanical treatments enable state-of-the art characteristics for the surface roughness. The design of an oven strongly depends on its ability to reach the desired annealing process. It is significantly improved thanks to nichrome resistant alloy wires and special chopped basalt fibers for thermal isolation. In addition to the experimental tests, and in order to get better understanding of the residual stresses inside the resonator, we have simulated the heating process in the oven using the finite element code ANSYS(C) and CFD fluid module. Thermal distribution at different times of the heating and for three different temperatures with the range of 600 degrees C are described.