I measured PMC ringdowns for several input powers. I change the input power by changing the DC voltage to the AOM.

First, I raise the DC voltage to the AOM from 0V and observe the signal on the picked off PD. I see that at around 0.6V the signal stops rising. The signal on the PD is around 4V at that point so it is not saturated.

Up until now, we provided 1.5V to the AOM, which means it was saturated.

I measured ringdowns at AOM voltages of 0.05, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 1 volt by shutting off the DC voltage to the AOM and measuring the signal at the PMC transmission PD and the picked off PD simultaneously for reference.

Attachment 1 shows the reference measurement for different AOM voltages. For low AOM DC voltages, the response of the AOM+PD is slower.

Attachment 2 shows the PMC transmission PD measurements which barely change as a function of AOM voltage but shows the same trend. I believe that if the AOM+PD response was much faster there would be no observable difference between those measurements.

Attachment 3 shows PMC transmissions and references for AOM voltages 0.05V and 1V. It seems like for low AOM voltages we are barely fast enough to measure the PMC ringdown.

I fitted the 0.3V ringdown and reference to a sum of two exponentials (Attachment 4).

The fitting function is explicitly a * nm.exp(-x/b) +c* nm.exp(-x/d) +e

For the PMC transmission I get:

a = 0.21
b = 3.64 (us)
c = 0.69, 
d = 39.62 (us)
e = 2.0e-04

For the reference measurement:

a = 0.34
b = 4.97 (us)
c = 0.58
d= 31.22 (us)
e = 1.11e-03

I am still not able to do deconvolution of the ref from the measurement reliably. I think we should do a network analyzer measurement.

Shruti, the PD is again in your beam path.