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ID Date Author Type Category Subject
2859   Wed Apr 28 16:15:02 2010 KevinUpdatePSLAccelerometer Calibration

Koji, Steve, and Kevin looked into calibrating the Wilcoxon accelerometers. Once calibrated, the accelerometers will be used to monitor the motion of the PSL table.

We want to use the shaker to shake each accelerometer and monitor the motion with an OSEM. We will make a plate to attach an accelerometer to the shaker. A flag will also be mounted on this plate.The OSEM will be mounted on the table next to the shaker and positioned so that the flag can block the LED light as the plate moves up and down. We will then measure the motion of the accelerometer as it is shaken from the OSEM signal. The OSEM signal will be calibrated by keeping the plate and the flag still and moving the OSEM down along the flag a known distance with a micrometer.

2907   Mon May 10 20:03:22 2010 KevinUpdateGreen LockingGreen Laser Beam Profile

Kiwamu and Kevin measured the beam profile of the green laser by the south arm ETM.

The following measurements were made with 1.984A injection current and 39.65°C laser crystal temperature.

Two vertical scans (one up and one down) were taken with a razor blocking light entering a photodiode with the razor 7.2cm from the center of the lens. This data was fit to

b + a*erf(sqrt(2)*(x-x0)/w) with the following results:

scan down: w = (0.908 ± 0.030)mm  chi^2 = 3.8

scan up:      w = (0.853 ± 0.025)mm   chi^2 = 2.9

giving a weighted value of w = (0.876 ± 0.019)mm at this distance.

The beam widths for the profile fits were measured with the beam scanner. The widths are measured as the full width at 13.5% of the maximum. Each measurement was averaged over 100 samples. The distance is measured from the back of the lens mount to the front face of the beam scanner.

 distance (cm) vertical w (µm) horizontal w (µm) 3.2 ± 0.1 1231 ± 8 1186 ± 7 4.7 ± 0.1 1400 ± 4 1363 ± 6 7.4 ± 0.1 1656 ± 5 1625 ± 9 9.6 ± 0.1 1910 ± 10 1863 ± 9 12.5 ± 0.1 2197 ± 8 2176 ± 8 14.6 ± 0.1 2450 ± 12 2416 ± 10 17.5 ± 0.1 2717 ± 12 2694 ± 14 20.0 ± 0.1 2973 ± 16 2959 ± 8 22.4 ± 0.1 3234 ± 12 3193 ± 14

This data was fit to w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2) with lambda = 532nm with the following results:

For the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 3.29

x0 = (-87   ± 1)    mm

w0 = (16.30 ± 0.14) µm

For the horizontal beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 2.01

x0 = (-82   ± 1)    mm

w0 = (16.12 ± 0.10) µm

Note: These fits were done with the beam diameter instead of the beam radius. The correct fits to the beam radius are here: http://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8080/40m/2912

Attachment 1: vbp.jpg
Attachment 2: vbp_residuals.jpg
Attachment 3: hbp.jpg
Attachment 4: hbp_residuals.jpg
2912   Tue May 11 17:02:43 2010 KevinUpdateGreen LockingGreen Laser Beam Profile

 Quote: Hey, what a quick work! But, wait... 1) The radius of the beam was measured by the razor blade. 2) The diameter of the beam (13.5% full-width) at each point was measured by Beam Scan. The one at z=~7cm was consistent with 1) 3) The data 2) was fitted by a function w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2). This is defined for the radius, isn't it? So the fitting must be recalculated with correct radius. Make sure that you always use radius and write with a explicit word "radius" in the record.
I recalculated the fits using the radius of the beam instead of the diameter of the beam at 13.5% full-width with the following results:

For the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 3.25

x0 = (-86 ± 1)mm

w0 = (46.01 ± 0.38)µm

For the horizontal beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 2.05

x0 = (-81 ± 1)mm

w0 = (45.50 ± 0.28)µm

Attachment 1: vbp.jpg
Attachment 2: vbp_residuals.jpg
Attachment 3: hbp.jpg
Attachment 4: hbp_residuals.jpg
2933   Fri May 14 16:14:37 2010 KevinUpdateGreen LockingGreen Laser Beam Profile

 Quote: Strange. I thought the new result became twice of the first result. i.e. w0=32um or so. Can you explain why the waist raidus is estimated to be three times of the last one? Can you explain why the measured radius @~70mm is not 0.8mm, which you told us last time, but is 0.6mm? The measurements have been done at the outside of the Rayleigh range. This means that the waist size is derived from the divergence angle theta = lambda / (pi w0) At the beginning you used diameter instead of radius. This means you used twice larger theta to determine w0. So if that mistake is corrected, the result for w0 should be just twice of the previous wrong fit.
I was off by a factor of sqrt(2). The correct fit parameters are

for the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 3.28

x0 = (-87 ± 1) mm

w0 = (32.59 ± 27) µm

for the horizontal beam profile

reduced chi^2 = 2.02

x0 = (-82 ± 1) mm

w0 = (32.23 ± 20) µm

In the following plots * denotes vertical data points and + denotes horizontal data points. The blue curve is the fit to the vertical data and the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal data.

Attachment 1: profile.png
Attachment 2: residuals.png
2976   Mon May 24 16:34:22 2010 KevinUpdatePSLND Filters for 2W Beam Profile

I tried to measure the beam profile of the 2W laser today but ran into problems with the ND filters. With the measurements I made a few weeks ago, I used a reflective ND 4.0 filter on the PD. The PD started to saturate and Koji and I noticed that a lot of the metallic coating on the filter had been burnt off. Koji told me to use an absorptive ND 4.0 filter in front of a reflective ND 0.6 filter. I tried this today but noticed that a few holes were being burned into the absorptive filter and that the coating on the reflective filter behind it was also being burned off in spots. I don't think we wanted to use a polarizing beam splitter to reduce the power before the PD but I didn't want to ruin any more filters.

2984   Tue May 25 17:04:37 2010 KevinUpdate Beam Profile After Mode Cleaner

I fit the data from the beam profile that Jenne measured on 5/21/2010. The distances are measured from halfway between MC1 and MC3 to the beam scanner. The fits give the following where w0 is the waist size and z0 is the distance from the waist to halfway between MC1 and MC3.

For the horizontal profile:

reduced chi^2 = 0.88

z0 = (1 ± 29) mm

w0 = (1.51 ± 0.01) mm

For the vertical profile:

reduced chi^2 = 0.94

z0 = (673 ± 28) mm

w0 = (1.59 ± 0.01) mm

I calculated the radius of curvature of MC2 using these values of w0:

horizontal: (16.89 ± 0.06) m

vertical:   (17.66 ± 0.07) m

For this calculation, I used the value of (13.546 ± .0005) m for the length of the mode cleaner measured on 6/10/2009. The specification for the radius of curvature of MC2 is (18.4 ± 0.1) m.

In the following plots, the blue curve is the fit to the vertical beam radius, the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal beam radius, * denotes a data point from the vertical data, and + denotes a data point from the horizontal data.

Attachment 1: mcfit.png
Attachment 2: mcerrors.png
2986   Tue May 25 17:22:56 2010 KevinUpdateIOOBeam Profile After Mode Cleaner

Quote:

Very nice as usual. Can you add the curve to show the ideal mode of the MC on the profile plot?

 Quote: I fit the data from the beam profile that Jenne measured on 5/21/2010. The distances are measured from halfway between MC1 and MC3 to the beam scanner. The fits give the following where w0 is the waist size and z0 is the distance from the waist to halfway between MC1 and MC3. For the horizontal profile: reduced chi^2 = 0.88 z0 = (1 ± 29) mm w0 = (1.51 ± 0.01) mm For the vertical profile: reduced chi^2 = 0.94 z0 = (673 ± 28) mm w0 = (1.59 ± 0.01) mm I calculated the radius of curvature of MC2 using these values of w0: horizontal: (16.89 ± 0.06) m vertical:   (17.66 ± 0.07) m For this calculation, I used the value of (13.546 ± .0005) m for the length of the mode cleaner measured on 6/10/2009. The specification for the radius of curvature of MC2 is (18.4 ± 0.1) m.

Here is the plot with the ideal mode of the mode cleaner shown in brown. The ideal mode was plotted with the radius of curvature of 18.4. The blue curve is the fit to the vertical beam radius, the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal beam radius, * denotes a data point from the vertical data, and + denotes a data point from the horizontal data.

Attachment 1: mcfit.png
3030   Wed Jun 2 03:24:22 2010 KevinUpdatePSL2W Beam Profile

[Rana, Kiwamu, Kevin]

The Innolight 2W beam profile was measured with the beam scan. A W2-IF-1025-C-1064-45P window was used to reflect a small amount of the main beam. A 5101 VIS mirror was used to direct just the beam reflected from the front surface of the W2 down the table (the beam reflected from the back surface of the W2 hit the optic mount for the mirror). A razor blade beam dump was used to stop the main transmitted beam from the W2. The distance from the laser was measured from the front black face of the laser to the front face of the beam scan (this distance is not the beam path length but was the easiest and most accurate distance to measure). The vertical and horizontal beam widths were measured at 13.5% of the maximum intensity (each measurement was averaged over 100 samples). These widths were divided by 2 to get the vertical and horizontal radii.

The mirror was tilted so that the beam was close to parallel to the table. (The center of the beam fell by approximately 2.1 mm over the 474 mm that the measurement was made in).

The measurement was taken with an injection current of 2.004 A and a laser crystal temperature of 25.04°C.

This data was fit to w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2) with lambda = 1064nm with the following results

For the horizontal beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 4.0

x0 = (-138 ± 3) mm 

w0 = (113.0 ± 0.7) µm

For the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 14.9

x0 = (-125 ± 4) mm 

w0 = (124.0 ± 1.0) µm

In the following plots, the blue curve is the fit to the vertical beam radius, the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal beam radius, * denotes a data point from the vertical data, and + denotes a data point from the horizontal data.

Attachment 1: profile.png
Attachment 2: errors.png
Attachment 3: Layout.jpg
3040   Wed Jun 2 22:25:39 2010 KevinUpdatePSLLow Power 2W Beam Profile

Koji is worried about thermal lensing introducing errors to the measurement of the 2W beam profile so I measured the profile at a lower power.

I used the same setup and methods used to measure the profile at 2W (see entry). This measurement was taken with an injection current of 1.202 A and a laser crystal temperature of 25.05° C. This corresponds to approximately 600 mW (see power measurement).

The data was fit to  w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2) with the following results

For the horizontal beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 2.7

x0 = (-203 ± 3) mm

w0 = (151.3 ± 1.0) µm

For the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 6.8

x0 = (-223 ± 6) mm

w0 = (167.5 ± 2.2) µm

In the following plots, the blue curve is the fit to the vertical beam radius, the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal beam radius, * denotes a data point from the vertical data, and + denotes a data point from the horizontal data.

The differences between the beam radii for the low power and high power measurements are

Δw0_horizontal = (38.3 ± 1.2) µm

Δw0_vertical = (43.5 ± 2.4) µm

Thus, the two measurements are not consistent. To determine if the thermal lensing is in the laser itself or due to reflection from the W2 and mirror, we should measure the beam profile again at 2W with a razor blade just before the W2 and a photodiode to measure the intensity of the reflection off of the front surface. If this measurement is consistent with the measurement made with the beam scan, this would suggest that the thermal lensing is in the laser itself and that there are no effects due to reflection from the W2 and mirror. If the measurement is not consistent, we should do the same measurement at low power to compare with the measurement described in this entry.

 

Attachment 1: profile_low.png
3041   Wed Jun 2 22:58:04 2010 KevinUpdatePSL2W Second Reflected Beam Profile

[Koji, Kevin]

The profile of the Innolight 2W was previously measured by measuring the reflected beam from the front surface of a W2 window (see entry). To investigate thermal effects, Rana suggested also measuring the profile of the beam reflected from the back surface of the W2.

I used the same setup and methods as were used in the first measurement. The mirror was moved so that only the beam reflected from the back surface of the W2 was reflected from the mirror. This beam was reflected from both the front of the mirror and the back of the mirror. An extra beam dump was positioned to block the reflection from the back of the mirror.

This measurement was made with 2.004 A injection current and 25.04°C laser crystal temperature.

The data was fit to w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2) with the following results

For the horizontal beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 5.1

x0 = (-186 ± 6) mm 

w0 = (125.8 ± 1.4) µm

For the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 14.4

x0 = (-202 ± 11) mm 

w0 = (132.5 ± 2.7) µm

In the following plots, the blue curve is the fit to the vertical beam radius, the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal beam radius, * denotes a data point from the vertical data, and + denotes a data point from the horizontal data.

The differences between the beam radii for the beam reflected from the front surface and the beam reflected from the back surface are

Δw0_horizontal = (12.8 ± 1.6) µm

Δw0_vertical = (8.5 ± 2.9) µm

So the two measurements are not consistent. This suggests that the passage through the W2 altered the profile of the beam.

Attachment 1: profile_2nd.png
3042   Thu Jun 3 00:47:17 2010 KevinUpdatePSL2W Beam Profile of Second Reflected Beam

[Koji, Kevin]

The profile of the Innolight 2W was previously measured by measuring the reflected beam from the front surface of a W2 window (see entry). To investigate thermal effects, Rana suggested also measuring the profile of the beam reflected from the back surface of the W2.

I used the same setup and methods as were used in the first measurement. The mirror was moved so that only the beam reflected from the back surface of the W2 was reflected from the mirror. This beam was reflected from both the front of the mirror and the back of the mirror. An extra beam dump was positioned to block the reflection from the back of the mirror.

This measurement was made with 2.004 A injection current and 25.04°C laser crystal temperature.

The data was fit to w = sqrt(w0^2+lambda^2*(x-x0)^2/(pi*w0)^2) with the following results

For the horizontal beam profile:
 reduced chi^2 = 5.1 x0 = (-186 ± 6) mm w0 = (125.8 ± 1.4) µm

For the vertical beam profile:
 reduced chi^2 = 14.4 x0 = (-202 ± 11) mm w0 = (132.5 ± 2.7) µm

In the following plots, the blue curve is the fit to the vertical beam radius, the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal beam radius, * denotes a data point from the vertical data, and + denotes a data point from the horizontal data.

Attachment 1: profile_2nd.png
3679   Fri Oct 8 12:29:21 2010 KevinUpdateComputersNew Netgear Switch

I removed some old equipment from the rack outside the control room and stacked them next to the filing cabinets in the control room. I also mounted the new Netgear switch in the rack.

3747   Wed Oct 20 21:33:11 2010 KevinUpdatePSLQuarter Wave Plate Optimization

[Suresh and Kevin]

We placed the quarter wave plate in front of the 2W laser and moved the half wave plate forward. To make both wave plates fit, we had to rotate one of the clamps for the laser. We optimized the angles of both wave plates so that the power in the reflection from the PBS was minimized and the transmitted power through the faraday isolator was maximized. This was done with 2.1 A injection current and 38°C crystal temperature.

Next, I will make plots of the reflected power as a function of half wave plate angle for a few different quarter wave plate rotations.

3760   Fri Oct 22 03:37:56 2010 KevinUpdatePSLQuarter Wave Plate Measurements

[Koji and Kevin]

We measured the reflection from the PBS as a function of half wave plate rotation for five different quarter wave plate rotations. Before the measurement we reduced the laser current to 1 A, locked the PMC, and recorded 1.1 V transmitted through the PMC. During the measurements, the beam was blocked after the faraday isolator. After the measurements, we again locked the PMC and recorded 1.2 V transmitted. The current is now 2.1 A and both the PMC and reference cavities are locked.

I will post the details of the measurement tomorrow.

3768   Sat Oct 23 02:25:49 2010 KevinUpdatePSLQuarter Wave Plate Measurements

 Quote: [Koji and Kevin] We measured the reflection from the PBS as a function of half wave plate rotation for five different quarter wave plate rotations. Before the measurement we reduced the laser current to 1 A, locked the PMC, and recorded 1.1 V transmitted through the PMC. During the measurements, the beam was blocked after the faraday isolator. After the measurements, we again locked the PMC and recorded 1.2 V transmitted. The current is now 2.1 A and both the PMC and reference cavities are locked. I will post the details of the measurement tomorrow.

I measured the reflected power from the PBS as a function of half wave plate rotation for five different quarter wave plate rotations.

The optimum angles that minimize the reflected power are 330° for the quarter wave plate and 268° for the half wave plate.

The following data was taken with 2.102 A laser current and 32.25° C crystal temperature.

For each of five quarter wave plate settings around the optimum value, I measured the reflected power from the PBS with an Ophir power meter. I measured the power as a function of half wave plate angle five times for each angle and averaged these values to calculate the mean and uncertainty for each of these angles. The Ophir started to drift when trying to measure relatively large amounts of power. (With approximately 1W reflected from the PBS, the power reading rapidly increased by several hundred mW.) So I could only take data near the minimum reflection accurately.

The data was fit to P = P0 + P1*sin^2(2pi/180*(t-t0)) with the angle t measured in degrees with the following results:

 lambda/4 angle (°) t0 (°) P0 (mW) P1 (mW) chi^2/ndf V 318 261.56 ± 0.02 224.9 ± 0.5 2016 ± 5 0.98 0.900 ± 0.001 326 266.07 ± 0.01 178.5 ± 0.4 1998 ± 5 16.00 0.918 ± 0.001 330 268.00 ± 0.01 168.2 ± 0.3 2119 ± 5 1.33 0.926 ± 0.001 334 270.07 ± 0.02 174.5 ± 0.4 2083 ± 5 1.53 0.923 ± 0.001 342 273.49 ± 0.02 226.8 ± 0.5 1966 ± 5 1.41 0.897 ± 0.001

where V is the visibility V = 1- P_max/P_min. These fits are shown in attachment 1. We would like to understand better why we can only reduce the reflected light to ~150 mW. Ideally, we would have V = 1. I will redo these measurements with a different power meter that can measure up to 2 W and take data over a full period of the reflected power.

Attachment 1: fits.png
3802   Thu Oct 28 02:01:51 2010 KevinUpdatePSLFilter for 2W Laser

[Rana and Kevin]

I made a low pass filter for the piezo driver for the 2W laser that is now installed. The filter has a pole at 2.9 Hz. The transfer function is shown in attachment 1.

Attachment 2 shows the outside of the filter with the circuit diagram and attachment 2 shows the inside of the filter.

Attachment 1: tf.PDF
Attachment 2: outside.jpg
Attachment 3: inside.jpg
3818   Fri Oct 29 04:58:04 2010 KevinUpdatePSLPBS Optimization

[Koji and Kevin]

Since there was still a lot of power being reflected from the PBS before the Faraday rotator, I placed another PBS at the reflection from the first PBS to investigate the problem. If everything was ideal, we would expect the PBS to transmit P polarization and reflect S polarization. Thus, if the laser was entirely in the TEM00 mode, with the quarter and half wave plates we should be able to rotate the polarizations so that all of the power is transmitted through the PBS. In reality, some amount of P is reflected in addition to S reducing the power transmitted. (We are not sure what the PBS is since there are no markings on it but CVI says that their cubes should have less than 5% P reflection).

For the following measurements, the laser crystal temperature was 31.8° C, the current was 2.1 A, the half wave plate was at 267° and the quarter wave plate was at 330°. I first measured the power reflected from the first PBS then added the second PBS to this reflected light and measured the transmitted and reflected powers from this PBS with the following results:

 reflection from first PBS 127 mW reflection from second PBS 48 mW transmission from second PBS 81 mW

This shows that approximately 81 mW of P polarization was being reflected from the first PBS and that there is approximately 48 mW of S polarization that could not be rotated into P with the two wave plates. Attachment 1 shows the shape of the reflected (S polarization) beam from the second PBS. This shows that the S polarization is not in TEM00 and can not be rotated by the wave plates. The transmitted P polarization is in TEM00.

We then rotated the first PBS (in yaw) to minimize the amount of P being reflected. Repeating the above measurement with the current alignment gives

 reflection from first PBS 59 mW reflection from second PBS 52 mW transmission from second PBS 8.5 mW

Thus by rotating the cube to minimize the amount of P reflected, ~70 mW more power is transmitted through the cube. This adjustment moved the beam path slightly so Koji realigned the Faraday rotator and EOM. The PMC was then locked and the beam was realigned on the PMC. At 2.1 A, the transmission through the PMC is 6.55 V and the reflection is 178 mV. With the PMC unlocked, the reflection is 312 mV. This gives a visibility of 0.43.

Note by KA:
We realigned the beam toward the PMC at 1.0A at first so that we don't cook any parts. Once we get the TEM00 resonance, the steering mirrors were aligned to maximize the PMC transmission. Then the pumping current was increased to 2.1A.

3890   Thu Nov 11 02:17:27 2010 KevinUpdateElectronicsREFL11 Photodiode Not Working

[Koji and Kevin]

I was trying to characterize the REFL11 photodiode by shining a flashlight on the photodiode and measuring the DC voltage with an oscilloscope and the RF voltage with a spectrum analyzer. At first, I had the photodiode voltage supplied incorrectly with 15V between the +15 and -15 terminals. After correcting this error, and checking that the power was supplied correctly to the board, no voltage could be seen when light was incident on the photodiode.

We looked at the REFL55 photodiode and could see ~200 mV of DC voltage when shining a light on it but could not see any signal at 55 MHz. If the value of 50 ohm DC transimpedance is correct, this should be enough to see an RF signal. Tomorrow, we will look into fixing the REFL11 photodiode.

3904   Fri Nov 12 02:51:20 2010 KevinUpdateElectronicsPhotodiode Testing

[Jenne and Kevin]

I started testing the REFL55 photodiode. With a light bulb, I saw ~270 mV of DC voltage from the photodiode but still could not see any RF signal. I connected the RF out from the spectrum analyzer to the test input and verified that the circuit was working.

I then set up the AM laser and looked at the laser light with REFL11 and an 1811 photodiode. I was able to see an RF signal and verified that the resonant frequency is 55 MHz.

The current setup is not very reliable because the laser is not mounted rigidly. Next, I will work on making this mounting more reliable and will continue to work on finding an RF signal with a flashlight.

3944   Thu Nov 18 01:52:58 2010 KevinUpdateElectronicsREFL55 Transfer Functions

I measured the optical and electrical transfer functions for REFL55 and calculated the RF transimpedance. To measure the optical transfer function, I used the light from an AM laser to simultaneously measure the transfer functions of REFL55 and a New Focus 1611 photodiode. I combined these two transfer functions to get the RF transimpedance for REFL55. I also measured the electrical transfer function by putting the RF signal from the network analyzer in the test input of the photodiode.

I put all of the plots on the wiki at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/REFL55.

3952   Fri Nov 19 03:43:33 2010 KevinUpdateElectronicsREFL55 Characterizations

[Koji, Rana, and Kevin]

I have been trying to measure the shot noise of REFL55 by shining a light bulb on the photodiode and measuring the noise with a spectrum analyzer. The measured dark noise of REFL55 is 35 nV/rtHz. I have been able to get 4 mA of DC current on the photodiode but have not been able to see any shot noise.

I previously measured the RF transimpedance of REFL55 by simultaneously measuring the transfer functions of REFL55 and a new focus 1611 photodiode with light from an AM laser. By combining these two transfer functions I calculated that the RF transimpedance at 55 MHz is ~ 200 ohms. With this transimpedance the shot noise at 4 mA is only ~ 7 nV/rtHz and would not be detectable above the dark noise.

The value of 200 ohms for the transimpedance seems low but it agrees with Alberto's previous measurements. By modeling the photodiode circuit as an RLC circuit at resonance with the approximate values of REFL55 (a photodiode capacitance of 100 pF and resistance of 10 ohms and an inductance of 40 nH), I calculated that the transimpedance should be ~ 230 ohms at 55 MHz. Doing the same analysis for the values of REFL11 shows that the transimpedance at 11 MHz should be ~ 2100 ohms. A more careful analysis should include the notch filters but this should be approximately correct at resonance and suggests that the 200 ohm measurement is correct for the current REFL55 circuit.

3971   Tue Nov 23 01:27:33 2010 KevinUpdateElectronicsPOX Characterizations

I measured the RF transimpedance of the POX photodiode by measuring the optical transfer function with the AM laser and by measuring the shot noise with a light bulb. The plots of these measurements are at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/POX.

I measured the noise of the photodiode at 11 MHz for different light intensities using an Agilent 4395a. The noise of a 50 ohm resistor as measured by this spectrum analyzer is 10.6 nV/rtHz. I fit this noise data to the shot noise formula to find the RF transimpedance at 11 MHz to be (2.42 ± 0.08) kΩ. The RF transimpedance at 11 MHz as measured by the transfer function is 6.4 kΩ.

4048   Mon Dec 13 21:03:30 2010 KevinUpdateElectronicsRF Photodiode Characterizations

[Koji, Jenne, Kevin]

Jenne worked on fixing REFL11 last week (see elog 4034) and was able to measure an electrical transfer function. Today, I tried to measure an optical transfer function but REFL11 is still not responding to any optical input. I tried shining both the laser and a flashlight on the PD but could not get any DC voltage.

I also completed the characterizations of POX. I redid the optical transfer function and shot noise measurements. I also took a time series of the RF output from the PD when it was powered on with no light. This measurement shows oscillations at about 225 MHz. I also measured the spectrum with no light which also shows the oscillations at 225 MHz and smaller oscillations at ~455 MHz.

The plots can be found at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/POX?action=show.

4167   Wed Jan 19 04:25:54 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsPOX Transfer Functions

I redid the optical POX transfer functions and updated the wiki at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/POX.

I measured each transfer function several times to calculate uncertainties for each measured point. There is one large transfer function from 1 MHz to 500 MHz showing a resonance peak at 11 MHz and notches at 22 MHz and 55 MHz. I also made more detailed measurements around each of these resonance peaks. These measurements were fit to a resonance curve to determine the resonant frequency, transimpedance at resonance, and Q for each peak. These measurements agree with the shot noise measurement for the transimpedance at 11 MHz taken earlier considering that this measurement was made at 11 MHz instead of at the resonant frequency of 11.14 MHz.

I measured these transfer functions with the Agilent 4395a using the netgpib.py script last week. I realized that when using this script to save multiple copies of the same measurement after setting up the instrument, the first and second measurements are saved but all measurements saved after are identical to the second measurement until the instrument is physically reset. This happens because the analyzer switches the trigger from continuous to hold after making a measurement using this script. Kiwamu said that the script can be modified to return the trigger to continuous after saving the data so that multiple measurements can be saved without being at the analyzer physically. I did not want to waste more time figuring out how to modify the script to do this so I used one of the netbooks and sat at the analyzer manually returning the trigger to continuous after each measurement.

4170   Wed Jan 19 17:00:23 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsPOX Transfer Functions

The value of I_dc was a mistake. The value should be 240 µA.

The widths of the resonance peaks are listed below the fits to each peak on the wiki.

4172   Thu Jan 20 01:50:30 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsPOX Transfer Functions

[Koji, Kevin]

We fit the entire POX optical transfer function from 1 MHz to 500 MHz in LISO. The fit is on the wiki at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/POX. Using LISO's root fitting mode, we found that the transfer function has five poles and four zeros.

I will work on making plots of the residuals. This is difficult because by default, LISO does not calculate the fitting function at the frequencies of the data points themselves and I haven't figured out how to force it to do this yet.

4210   Thu Jan 27 03:24:56 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsPOY Optical Transfer Function

[Rana and Kevin]

I measured the optical transfer function of POY and fit the data using LISO. The fit can be found at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/POY. POY was missing the RF cage and back cover so I took those parts from AS55 in order to make these measurements.

POY does not have the unwanted oscillations at 225 MHz that POX has. Attachment 1 shows the transfer functions of POX and POY.

To measure the transfer functions, I used a 50/50 beam splitter to send half the light from an AM laser to POY and half the light to a New Focus 1611 reference photodiode. The transfer function for POY was measured as the transfer function of the signal from POY divided by the signal from the 1611. When I was measuring the transfer function for POX, I failed to ensure that the photodiodes were operating linearly. Before making the measurements for POY, I varied the RF power modulating the AM laser and recorded the magnitude of the transfer function at the 11 MHz peak. Attachment 2 shows these values. The measurements for POY were made in the linear region at an RF power of -10 dBm. The measurements for POX were made at 0 dBm and were most likely not in the linear region for POX.

Attachment 1: tf_pox_poy.png
Attachment 2: linearity.png
4242   Thu Feb 3 01:46:54 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsPOY Shot Noise and Dark Spectrum

[Koji and Kevin]

I measured the shot noise of POY and fit the data to determine the RF transimpedance at 11 MHz and the dark current. The transimpedance is (3.860 +- 0.006) kΩ. I realize that there are not many data points past the dark current but I did not want to take any further data because the light bulb was getting pretty bright. If this is a problem, I can try to redo the measurement using a lens to try to focus more of the light from the bulb onto the photodiode.

I also measured the spectrum and recorded a time series of the RF signal with the light to the photodiode blocked. These measurements do not show any large oscillations like the ones found for POX.

The plots of the measurements are on the wiki at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/POY.

4347   Thu Feb 24 00:54:33 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsCalculated Dark Noise for POX and POY

[Kevin, Rana, Koji]

I calculated the dark noise of POX and POY due to Johnson noise and voltage and current noise from the MAX4107 op-amp using nominal values for the circuit components found in their data sheets. I found that the dark noise should be approximately 15.5 nV/rtHz. The measured dark noise values are 18.35 nV/rtHz and 98.5 nV/rtHz for POX and POY respectively. The shot noise plots on the wiki have been updated to show these calculated dark noise sources.

The measured dark noise for POY is too high. I will look into the cause of this large noise. It is possible that the shot noise measurement for POY was bad so I will start by redoing the measurement.

4370   Wed Mar 2 22:04:22 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsPOY Shot Noise Measurement

The previous measurement for the shot noise of POY had the dark noise at ~100 nV/rtHz. I redid the measurement and got 26 nV/rtHz for the dark noise. I think that when I made the previous measurement, the spectrum analyzer had automatically added some attenuation to the input that I failed to remove. This added attenuation raised the noise floor of the measurement making the dark noise of POY appear larger than it is.

The updated measurement can be found on the wiki at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/POY.

4395   Thu Mar 10 01:31:37 2011 KevinUpdateElectronicsAS55 Characterizations

I measured the transfer function, shot noise, and dark spectrum of AS55.

From the shot noise measurement, the RF transimpedance is (556.3 +- 0.8) Ohms and the dark current is (2.39 +- 0.01) mA. The dark noise agrees with the approximate value calculated from the circuit components.

There are no anomalous oscillations when there is no light on the photodiode. I am working on fitting the transfer function in LISO but the other plots are on the wiki at http://blue.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/AS55

13272   Wed Aug 30 06:45:32 2017 KevinSummaryPEMNew Heater Circuit

I changed the heater circuit described in this elog to a current sink. The new and old circuits are shown in the attachment. The heater is $R_h$ and is currently 24Ω; the sense resistor $R$ is currently 6Ω. The op-amp is still an OP27 and the MOSFET is still an IRF630.

The current through the old circuit was saturating because the gate voltage on the MOSFET was saturating at the op-amp supply rails. This is because the source voltage is relatively high: $V_S = I(R + R_h)$.

In the new circuit the source voltage is lower and the op-amp can thus drive a large enough $V_{GS}$ to draw more current (until the power supply saturates at 25V/30Ω = 0.8A in this case). The source and DAC voltages are equal in this case$V_{\mathrm{DAC}} = V_S$ and so the current is $I = V_{\mathrm{DAC}}/R$. Since this is the same current through the heater, the drain voltage is $V_D = V_{cc} - IR_h$. I observed this behavior in this circuit until the power supply saturated at 0.8A. Note that when this happens $V_D = V_S$ and the gate voltage saturates at the supply rails in an attempt to supply the necessary current.

Attachment 1: circuit.pdf
13489   Wed Dec 20 00:43:58 2017 KevinSummaryGeneralDAC noise contribution to squeezing noise budget

Gautam and I looked into the DAC noise contribution to the noise budget for homodyne detection at the 40m. DAC noise is currently the most likely limiting source of technical noise.

Several of us have previously looked into the optimal SRC detuning and homodyne angle to observe pondermotive squeezing at the 40m. The first attachment summarizes these investigations and shows the amount of squeezing below vacuum obtainable as a function of homodyne angle for an optimal SRC detuning including fundamental classical sources of noise (seismic, CTN, and suspension thermal). These calculations are done with an Optickle model. According to the calculations, it's possible to see 6 dBvac of squeezing around 100 Hz.

The second attachment shows the amount of squeezing obtainable including DAC noise as a function of current noise in the DAC electronics. These calculations are done at the optimal -0.45 deg SRC detuning and 97 deg homodyne angle. Estimates of this noise are computed as is done in elog 13146 and include de-whitening. It is not possible to observe squeezing with the current 400 Ω series resistor which corresponds to 30 pA/rtHz current noise at 100 Hz. We can get to 0 dBvac for current noise of around 10 pA/rtHz (1.2 kΩ series resistor) and can see 3 dBvac of squeezing with current noise of about 5 pA/rtHz at 100 Hz (2.5 kΩ series resistor). At this point it will be difficult to control the optics however.

So it seems reasonable to reduce the DAC noise to sufficient levels to observe squeezing, but we will need to think about the controls problem more.

Attachment 1: 40m_squeezing.pdf
Attachment 2: 40mDAC_squeezing.pdf
13490   Thu Dec 21 19:25:48 2017 KevinSummaryGeneralDAC noise contribution to squeezing noise budget

Gautam and I redid our calculations, and the updated plot of squeezing as a function of DAC current noise per coil is shown in the attachment. The current noise is calculated as the maximum of the filtered DAC noise and the Johnson noise of the series resistor. The total noise is for four optics with four coils each.

The numbers are worse than we quoted before: according to these calculations we can get to 0 dBvac for current noise per coil of about 2.4 pA/rtHz at 100 Hz.

 Quote: Gautam and I looked into the DAC noise contribution to the noise budget for homodyne detection at the 40m. DAC noise is currently the most likely limiting source of technical noise. Several of us have previously looked into the optimal SRC detuning and homodyne angle to observe pondermotive squeezing at the 40m. The first attachment summarizes these investigations and shows the amount of squeezing below vacuum obtainable as a function of homodyne angle for an optimal SRC detuning including fundamental classical sources of noise (seismic, CTN, and suspension thermal). These calculations are done with an Optickle model. According to the calculations, it's possible to see 6 dBvac of squeezing around 100 Hz. The second attachment shows the amount of squeezing obtainable including DAC noise as a function of current noise in the DAC electronics. These calculations are done at the optimal -0.45 deg SRC detuning and 97 deg homodyne angle. Estimates of this noise are computed as is done in elog 13146 and include de-whitening. It is not possible to observe squeezing with the current 400 Ω series resistor which corresponds to 30 pA/rtHz current noise at 100 Hz. We can get to 0 dBvac for current noise of around 10 pA/rtHz (1.2 kΩ series resistor) and can see 3 dBvac of squeezing with current noise of about 5 pA/rtHz at 100 Hz (2.5 kΩ series resistor). At this point it will be difficult to control the optics however. So it seems reasonable to reduce the DAC noise to sufficient levels to observe squeezing, but we will need to think about the controls problem more.

Attachment 1: 40mDAC_squeezing.pdf
13508   Sat Jan 6 05:18:12 2018 KevinUpdatePonderSqueezeDisplacement requirements for short-term squeezing

I have been looking into whether we can observe squeezing on a short timescale. The simulations I show here say that we can get 2 dBvac of squeezing at about 120 Hz using extreme signal recycling.

The parameters used here are

• 100 ppm transmissivity on the folding mirrors giving a PRC gain of 40.
• 10 kΩ series resistance for the ETMs; 15 kΩ series resistance for the ITMs.
• 1 W incident on the back of PRM.
• PD quantum efficiency 0.88.

The first attachment shows the displacement noise. The red curve labeled vacuum is the standard unsqueezed vacuum noise which we need to beat. The second attachment shows the same noise budget as a ratio of the noise sources to the vacuum noise.

This homodyne angle and SRC detuning give about the maximum amount of squeezing. However, there's quite a bit of flexibility and if there are other considerations, such as 100 Hz being too low, we should be able to optimize these angles (even with more pessimistic values of the above parameters) to see at least 0.2 dBvac around 400 Hz.

Attachment 1: displacement_noise.pdf
Attachment 2: noise_budget.pdf
13511   Sat Jan 6 23:25:18 2018 KevinUpdatePonderSqueezeDisplacement requirements for short-term squeezing

 Quote: ought to tune for 210 Hz (in-between powerlines) since 100 Hz is tough to work due to scattering, etc.

We can get 1.1 dBvac at 210 Hz.

The first two attachments are the noise budgets for these optimized angles. The third attachment shows squeezing as a function of homodyne angle and SRC detuning at 210 Hz. To stay below -1 dBvac, the homodyne angle must be kept between 88.5 and 89.7 degrees and the SRC detuning must be kept between -0.04 and 0.03 degrees. This corresponds to fixing the SRC length to within a range of 0.07/360 * 1064 nm = 200 pm.

Attachment 1: displacement_noise.pdf
Attachment 2: noise_budget.pdf
Attachment 3: angles.pdf
13513   Sun Jan 7 11:40:58 2018 KevinUpdatePonderSqueezeDisplacement requirements for short-term squeezing

Yes, this SRC detuning is very close to extreme signal recycling (0° in this convention), and the homodyne angle is close to the amplitude quadrature (90° in this convention).

For T(SRM) = 5% at the optimal angles (SRC detuning of -0.01° and homodyne angle of 89°), we can see 0.7 dBvac at 210 Hz.

13724   Fri Mar 30 22:37:36 2018 KevinUpdateIOOMCREFL_PD Optical response measurement

[Gautam, Kevin]

We redid the measurement measuring the voltage noise from the REFL PD demod board output monitor with an SR785 with the noise eater on and off. We used a 100x preamp to amplify the signal above the SR785 noise. The SR785 noise floor was measured with the input to the preamp terminated with 50 ohms. The spectra shown have been corrected for the 100x amplification.

This measurement shows no difference with the noise eater on or off.

 Quote: the noise eater on/off measurements should be done for 0-100 kHz and from the demod board output monitor

Attachment 1: REFLPD_DemodBoard.pdf
13728   Thu Apr 5 04:36:56 2018 KevinUpdateIOOCoil driver noise

[Gautam, Kevin]

We measured the MC coil driver noise at the output monitors of the coil driver board with an SR785 in order to further diagnose the excess IMC frequency noise.

Attachments 1 and 2 show the noise for the UL coils of MC3 and MC2 with various combinations of output filters engaged. When the 28 Hz elliptic filter is on, the analog dewhitening filter is off, and vice versa. The effect of the analog low pass filter is visible in MC3, but the effect of the digital low pass filter is swamped by the DAC noise.

We locked the arms and measured the ALS beatnote in each of these filter combinations, but which filters were on did not effect the excess IMC frequency noise. This suggests that the coil drivers are not responsible for the excess noise.

Attachment 2 shows the noise for all five coils on MC1, MC2, and MC3 as well as for ITMY, which is on a different DAC card from the MCs. All filters were on for these measurements.

Attachment 1: MC3.pdf
Attachment 2: MC2.pdf
Attachment 3: CoilDriver.pdf
13738   Fri Apr 6 22:23:53 2018 KevinUpdateIOOCoil driver noise

 Quote: Why is MC2 LR so different from the others???

The previous measurements were made from the coil driver output monitors. To investigate why the MC2 LR coil has less noise than the other coils, I also measured the noise at the output to the coils.

The circuit diagram for the coil driver board is given in D010001 and a picture of the rack is on the 40m wiki here. The coil driver boards are in the upper left quadrant of the rack. The input to the board is the column of LEMOs which are the "Coil Test In" inputs on the schematic. The output monitors are the row of LEMOs to the right of the input LEMOs and are the "FP Coil Volt Mon" outputs on the schematic. The output to the coils "Coil Out" in the schematic are carried through a DB15 connector.

The attachment shows the voltage noise for the MC2 LR coil as well as the UL coil which is similar to all of the other coils measured in the previous measurement. While the LR coil is less noisy than the UL coil as measured at the output monitor, they have the same noise spectrum as measured at the output to the coils themselves. So there must be something wrong with the buffer circuit for the MC2 LR voltage monitor, but the output to the coils themselves is the same as for the other coils.

Attachment 1: MC2_coil_driver.pdf
13755   Mon Apr 16 22:09:53 2018 KevinUpdateGeneralpower outage - BLRM recovery

I've been looking into recovering the seismic BLRMs for the BS Trillium seismometer. It looks like the problem is probably in the anti-aliasing board. There's some heavy stuff sitting on top of it in the rack, so I'll take a look at it later when someone can give me a hand getting it out.

In detail, after verifying that there are signals coming directly out of the seismometer, I tried to inject a signal into the AA board and see it appear in one of the seismometer channels.

1. I looked specifically at C1:PEM-SEIS_BS_Z_IN1 (Ch9), C1:PEM-SEIS_BS_X_IN1 (Ch7), and C1:PEM-ACC_MC2_Y_IN1 (Ch27). All of these channels have between 2000--3000 cts.
2. I tried injecting a 200 mVpp signal at 1.7862 Hz into each of these channels, but the the output did not change.
3. All channels have 0 cts when the power to the AA board is off.
4. I then tried to inject the same signal into the AA board and see it at the output. The setup is shown in the first attachment. The second BNC coming out of the function generator is going to one of the AA board inputs; the 32 pin cable is coming directly from the output. All channels give 4.6 V when when the board is powered on regardless of wheter any signal is being injected.
5. To verify that the AA board is likely the culprit, I also injected the same signals directly into the ADC. The setup is shown in the second attachment. The 32 pin cable is going directly to the ADC. When injecting the same signals into the appropriate channels the above channels show between 200--300 cts, and 0 cts when no signal is injected.
Attachment 1: AA.jpg
13763   Wed Apr 18 20:33:19 2018 KevinUpdateGeneralseismometer interfaces

Steve, the pictures you posted are not the AA board I was referring to. The attached pictures show the board which is sitting beneath the GPS time server.

Attachment 1: front.jpg
Attachment 2: back.jpg
Attachment 3: connectors.jpg
13777   Fri Apr 20 23:36:28 2018 KevinUpdatePEMSeismometer BLRMs

Steve secured the GPS time server in the rack above the AA board and removed the wooden block that it was resting on. The new rack is shown in attachment 1.

I then opened the AA board to see why the channels aren't working. Even though the board was powered and outputting 4.6 V, none of the chips were getting power. I must have shorted something while trying to diagnose this and the board is no longer powered either.

The schematic is given in D990147. The D68L8EX filter is bypassed on all the channels, as can be seen in attachment 3, so the board isn't really doing anything. Rana suggested that we could just bypass the whole circuit by wiring the IN channels directly to the OUT channels going to the ADC. I'll try that next for a single channel.

Attachment 1: front.jpg
Attachment 2: back.jpg
Attachment 3: detail.jpg
13787   Tue Apr 24 21:19:08 2018 KevinUpdatePEMSeismometer BLRMs

In the ongoing attempt to recover the seismometer BLRMS, I removed the AA board from the rack and modified the BS seismometer Z channel. The BS_Z BLRMs seem to be recovered after this modification.

I removed the three resistors from the output of the circuit and wired the input and from the seismometer directly to the input to the ADC. The modified schematic is shown in attachment 1. Attachments 2 and 3 show the top and bottom of the modified board. The board is doing nothing now other than serving as a connector for this channel.

I put the board back in the rack and injected a 2 Vpp signal into the BS_Z channel and saw +/- 1600 cts in C1PEM-SEIS_BS_Z. I then plugged the seismometer back into the board and took the spectrum shown in attachment 4. This shows the working Z channel giving a reasonable seismic spectrum. Note that X and Y are not modified yet.

If there are no objections, I will modify all the other channels on the board in the same way tomorrow.

Attachment 1: modified_schematic.pdf
Attachment 2: top.jpg
Attachment 3: bottom.jpg
Attachment 4: BS_Seis_PSD.pdf
13790   Thu Apr 26 09:35:49 2018 KevinUpdatePEMPEM Anti-Alias wiring

I wired all 32 channels going to the AA board directly to the ADC as described in the previous log. However, instead of using the old AA board and bypassing the whole circuit, I just used a breakout board as is shown in the first attachment. I put the board back in the rack and reconnected all of the cables.

The seismic BLRMs appear to be working again. A PSD of the BS seismometers is shown in attachment 2. Tomorrow I'll look at how much the ADC alone is suppressing the common mode 60 Hz noise on each of the channels.

Steve: 5 of ADC DAC In Line Test Boards [ D060124 ] ordered. They should be here within 10 days.

Attachment 1: board.jpg
Attachment 2: SeismometerPSD.pdf
13794   Thu Apr 26 20:22:21 2018 KevinUpdatePEMADC common mode rejection with new seismometer connections

Yesterday I wired the outputs from the seismometers directly to the ADC input bypassing the old AA board circuit as is described in this elog. The old circuit converted the single-ended output from the seismometers to a differential signal. Today I looked at whether 60 Hz noise is worse going directly into the ADC due to the loss of the common mode rejection previously provided by the conversion to differential signals.

I split the output from the BS Z seismometer to the new board and to an SR785. On the SR785 I measured the difference between the inner and outer conductors of the seismometer output, i.e. A-B with A the center conductor and B the outer conductor, with grounded input. At the same time I took a DTT spectrum of C1:PEM-SEIS_BS_Z_IN1. Both spectra were taken with 1 Hz bandwidth and 25 averages. The setup is shown in attachment 1.

The spectra are shown in attachment 2. The DTT spectrum was converted from counts to volts by multiplying by 2 * 10 V/32768 cts where the extra factor of 2 is from converting from single-ended to differential input. If there was common 60 Hz noise that the ADC was picking up we would expect to see less noise at 60 Hz in the SR785 spectrum measured directly at the output from the seismometer since that was a differential measurement. Since both spectra have the same 60 Hz noise, this noise is differential.

Attachment 1: setup.pdf
Attachment 2: seismometerASD.pdf
13801   Mon Apr 30 23:13:12 2018 KevinUpdateComputer Scripts / ProgramsDataViewer leapseconds

I was trying to plot trends (min, 10 min, and hour) in DataViewer and got the following error message

Connecting.... done
mjd = 58235
Opening leapsecs.dat
Open of leapsecs.dat failed

thoough the plots showed up fine after. Do we need to fix something with the leapsecs.dat file?

13808   Thu May 3 00:42:38 2018 KevinUpdatePonderSqueezeCoil driver contribution to squeezing noise budget

In light of the discussion at today's meeting, Guantanamo and I looked at how the series resistance for the test mass coil drivers limits the amount of squeezing we could detect.

The parameters used for the following calculations are:

• 4.5 kΩ series resistance for the ETM's (this was 10 kΩ in the previous calculations, so these numbers are a bit worse); 15 kΩ for the ITM's
• 100 ppm transmissivity on the folding mirrors giving a PRC gain of 40
• PD quantum efficiency of 0.88

Since we need to operate very close to signal recycling, instead of the current signal extraction setup, we will need to change the macroscopic length of the SRC. This will change the mode matching requirements such that the current SRM does not have the correct radius of curvature. One solution is to use the spare PRM which has the correct radius of curvature but a transmissivity of 0.05 instead of 0.1. So using this spare PRM for the SRM and changing the length of the SRC to be the same as the PRC we can get

• 0.63 dBvac of squeezing at 205 Hz for 1 W incident on the back of PRM
• 1.12 dBvac of squeezing at 255 Hz for 5 W incident on the back of PRM

This lower transmissivity for the SRM also reduces the achievable squeezing from the current transmissivity of 0.1. For an SRM with a transmissivity of 0.15 (which is roughly the optimal) we can get

• 1 dBvac of squeezing at 205 Hz for 1 W incident on the back of PRM
• 1.7 dBvac of squeezing at 255 Hz for 5 W incident on the back of PRM

The minimum achievable squeezing moves up from around 205 Hz at 1 W to 255 Hz at 5 W because the extra power increases the radiation pressure at lower frequencies.

13841   Mon May 14 18:58:32 2018 KevinUpdatePonderSqueezeSqueezing with no SRM
 Quote: Note that for Signal Recycling, which is what Kevin tells us we need to do, there is a DARM pole at ~150 Hz.

To be quantitative, since we are looking at smaller squeezing levels and considering the possibility of using 5 W input power, it is possible to see a small amount of squeezing below vacuum with no SRM.

Attachment 1 shows the amount of squeezing below vacuum obtainable as a function of homodyne angle with no SRM and 5 W incident on the back of PRM. The optimum homodyne angle at 210 Hz is 89.2 deg which gives -0.38 dBvac of squeezing. Figure 2 is the displacement noise at this optimal homodyne angle and attachment 3 is the same noise budget shown as the ratio of the various noise sources to the unsqueezed vacuum.

The other parameters used for these calculations are:

• 4.5 kΩ series resistance for the ETM coils; 15 kΩ for the ITM coils
• 100 ppm transmissivity on the folding mirrors giving a PRC gain of 40
• PD quantum efficiency of 0.88

So maybe it's worth considering going for less squeezing with no SRM if that makes it technically more feasible.

Attachment 1: homodyne_heatmap.pdf
Attachment 2: displacement_noise.pdf
Attachment 3: noise_budget.pdf
13849   Wed May 16 21:02:22 2018 KevinUpdatePEMADC common mode rejection with new seismometer connections

As described in this elog, the ADC for the seismometers now has the signals wired directly to the ADC instead of going through an AA board or other circuit to remove any common mode noise. This elog describes one test of the common mode rejection of this setup. Guantanamo suggested comparing directly with a recent spectrum taken a few months before the new setup described in this elog.

Today I took a spectrum (attachment 1) of C1:PEM-MIC_2 (Ch17) and C1:PEM-MIC_3 (Ch18) with input to the ADC terminated with 50 Ohms. These are two of the channels plotted in the previous spectrum, though I don't know how that plot was normalized. It's clear that there are now strong 60 Hz harmonic peaks that were not there before, so this new setup does have worse common mode rejection.