April 2021
The GEO600 laser system has been in operation for 10 years
In early April 2021 GEO600's laser system reached ten years of operating time.
The GEO600 laser system, installed in September 2010, has now been running longer than the identical systems used in the other large detectors (which include additional amplifier stages). Apart from interruptions for maintenance, upgrades, and experiments the laser has been running nearly all the time.
An AEI Hannover research team together with the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. has developed and provided pre-stabilized high-power laser systems to all current large interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. The experience gained by running earlier generations of theses systems at GEO600 was crucial to this success.