Laboratoire des Matériaux Avancés

The Laboratoire des Matériaux Avancés (LMA) is a National Research Plateforme of Institut de Physique des 2 Infinis de Lyon (IP2I). It is part of l'IN2P3-CNRS (Institut national de physique nucléaire et de physique des particules). The laboratory is specialized in the study, the medeliation, the realization (several deposition systems) and the characterization (optical and mechanical means) of thin films realized by several under vacuum deposition processes (PVD). These thin films are used for optical applications (low-loss mirrors for gyrolaser or interferometers, antireflective coatings, dichroic ...).
The LMA is particularly involved in the Franco-Italian project VIRGO (VIRGO mirrors realized by the LMA). LMA has also a long collaboration with the american project Advanced LIGO for the production of all the large test masses of the Fabry-Perot cavities.

ITM mirror coated at LMA and suspended in the Advanced LIGO interferometer (credit : Advanced LIGO)

Advanced Virgo beam splitter suspended in the interferometer tower (credit : M. Perciballi, red color = coating protective film)
Finally, for the japanese gravitational wave detector KAGRA, LMA has coated several large mirrors and particularily the large saphir mirrors of the laser cavities.(photo below).

Miroir ETM Kagra (crédit : LMA)

The LMA is also invloved in a European project ET (Einstein Telescope).

For the sake of diversification, the LMA has been involved in several projects for the production of large dichroic optics for instruments installed near large terrestrial telescopes: 4MOST (VLT - ESO), ESPRESSO (ESO), PFS (Subaru telescope).

Dichroïque 4MOST (crédit : LMA)
The LMA is also a member of the project consortium MICADO, the first light instrument of the future very large ELT telescope (ESO), for the realization of dichroic in CaF2.

Finally,the LMA also has a strong activity of valorization (production of optical components, metrology services).