Characterization of a tunable cavity for the LISA mission

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a gravitational wave detector aiming to detect low frequency gravitational waves. To do this, LISA will need to overcome a large degree of laser phase noise. Stabilizing a 1064-nm Nd:Yag laser to a tunable high-Finesse optical cavity could eliminate much of this noise. This project investigated the feasibility of using a tunable piezoelectric (PZT) cavity and its application to the LISA mission by comparing the stability of a PZT-actuated cavity with the stability of non-actuated cavities. This paper characterizes and presents first results of a tunable cavity that could be used for the first step of pre-stabilization