Today I placed the PDA255 photodiode on the PSL table to catch the small amount of beam power reflected by the second polarizing beam splitter in my setup. I plugged the PD output to the oscilloscope to measure the voltage output and positioned the PD such that the voltage output was maximized. At best I was able to achieve a 300 mV DC output voltage from the PD, (which seems a bit low, as the PD is specified to go from 0 to 5 V and the specifications say that the response becomes nonlinear after 10 mW/cm^2 and my beam has an intensity of approximately 5 mw/cm^2. I would therefore expect to get more beam power but after over an hour of maneuvering, 300 mV was the highest voltage output I could get).

I am planning, tomorrow afternoon, to take a measurement of the amplitude response of the PZT driving the NPRO laser. I moved the 4395 spectrum/network analyzer to near the PSL table and connected the RF output to an RF splitter. I fed one output of that into the PZT and the other output into the R port on the network analyzer. I fed the PD output into the A port. I plan to measure A/R as a function of driving frequency, sweeping from 10 Hz to 30 mHz.

I also worked to improve the mode matching of the NPRO beam coming from the AP table to the reference cavity. I drove the temperature of the NPRO at 0.100 Hz with an amplitude of 0.300 V, which Koji told me corresponds to a 1GHz change in the laser frequency. The transmission from the cavity is being monitored by a camera connected to a TV monitor, and also by a PD connected to an oscilloscope. I then repositioned the second lens in my mode matching setup in an attempt to increase the transmission peaks from the zeroth order spacial mode and decrease the transmission peaks from higher order modes. I may have improved the mode matching slightly but I was unable to improve it significantly.