[ericq, Gabriele, Manasa]
We wanted to perform the PRC length measurement today with an AS11 signal, but such a signal didn't exist. So, we have temporarily connected the AS110 PD signal (which is some Thorlabs PD, and not a resonant one) into the REFL11 demod board.
We then proceeded with the goal of locking the PRC with REFL165. A few parameters that were changed along the way as we aligned and locked things:
- the XARM gain was increased from 0.4 to 0.5 to help it acquire lock
- the MICH gain was decreased from -10 to -5 since there was some gain peaking in its servo output
- the REFL165 demodulation phase was changed from 155 to 122, to place a PRCL excitation entirely within I (we did this while locked on the carrier)
Sadly, in the end, we couldn't lock the PRC on a sideband in a stable manner. The alignment would drift faster than we could optimize the alignment and gains for the PRC. I.e. we would lock the PRC on the carrier, align PRM (and maybe touch ITMX) to maximize POPDC, switch to sideband locking, try to lock, and things would start looking misaligned. Switching back to carrier locking, the beam spots on REFL (for example) would have moved.
Manasa noted the MC_TRANS_Y has been substantially drifting along with small drift in MC_TRANS_P as well. So we need to fix the source of the mode cleaner beam drifting if we want to make this measurement. |