We added a channel on c1psl in order to monitor the temperature of the PPKTP sitting on the PSL table.

To take continuous data of the temperature we added the channel by editing the file: target/c1psl/c1psl.db

We named the channel "C1:PSL-PPKTP_TEMP".

To reflect this change we physically rebooted c1psl by keying the crate.

Is this a setpoint temperature that we can change by writing to the channel or is it a readout of the actual temperature of the oven?

kiwamu:

This is a readout channel just to monitor the actual temperature.

Rana and I found that the QPD for the optical lever at X end are showing small signals.

At this moment each of the segments exhibits approximately 200 counts when the oplev beam is centered.

These small numbers may be due to the coating of ETMX, but we are not sure.

Probably we have to increase the gain of the QPD depending on situations.

So a set of the tomorrow's daytime task is:

   1. check the trend data of the QPD outputs to see how much signals were there in the past.

   2. check the whitening filters to make sure if it's on or off.

   3. If it's necessary, increase the gain of the QPD to have reasonable readouts.

I am going to ask somebody to do this task.

Something happened about 8 years ago.

Old iLog entry by AJW (2003/Sep/8)

Old iLog entry by AJW (2003/Sep/9)

In the last week Matt and I modified the MFD configuration because the mixer had been illegally used.

Since the output from the comparator is normally about 10 dBm, a 4-way power splitter reduced the power down to 4 dBm in each output port.

In order to reserve a 7 dBm signal to a level-7 mixer, we decided to use an asymmetric power splitter, which is just a combination of 2-way and 3-way splitter shown in the diagram above.

With this configuration we can reserve a 7 dBm signal for a mixer in the fine path.

However on the other hand we sacrificed the coarse path because the power going to the mixer is now 2.2 dBm in each port.

According to the data sheet for the mixer, 1 dB compression point for the RF input is 1dBm. Therefore we put a 1 dB attenuator for the RF port in the coarse system.

In the delay line of the fine path we found that the delay cable was quite lossy and it reduced the power from 2.2 dBm to about 0 dBm.

Using 2 dBm for a Level 7 mixer is so bogus, that I will dismantle this as soon as I come over.

http://www.minicircuits.com/products/amplifiers_main.html

PLEASE DO NOT DISMANTLE THE SETUP !

Actually we tried looking for a level-3 or a smaller mixer, but we didn't find them at that moment. That's why we kept the level-7 mixer for the coarse path.

As you pointed out we can try an RF amplifier for it.

Here is a picture of the latest ABSL setup at the east part of the AP table.

(Some notes )

 - The ABSL laser is injected from the AP port.

  - A 90 % reflection BS was installed just after the NPRO, this is for sampling a 10% of the laser to the PSL table.

    However, I've just realized that this is not a nice way because the 10 % beam doesn't  go through the Faraday. Whoops.

 - A polarzser cell at the input side of the Faraday doesn't let any beam go through it for some reasons (broken ?).

    Therefore instead of having such a bad cell, a cube PBS was installed.

 -  A room was left on the table for the AS165 RFPD (green-dashed rectangular in the picture).

Last night I was making a script which will measure the sensing matrix using the realtime LOCKIN module.

The script is a kind of expansion of Jamie's one, which measure the asymmetry, to more generic purpose.

It will shake a suspended optic of interest and measure the response of each sensor by observing the demodulated I and Q signals from the LOCKIN module.

I will continue working on this.

  (current status)

 - made a function that drives the LOCKIN oscillator and get the data from the I and Q outputs.

 - checked the function with the MICH configuration.

   ITMX, ITMY and BS were shaken at 100 Hz and at different time.

   Then the response of AS55_Q showed agreement with what I got before for the actuator calibration (see this entry).

   It means the function is working fine.

Here is the conclusive result for the circuit configuration for aLIGO BBPD and 40m Green PD.

- Use Mini-circuits MAR-6SM for the RF preamplifier. The 50Ohm input impedance is used for the RF transimpedance.
  The maximum output is ~4dBm.

- Use Mini-circuits GALI-6 for the RF middle power amp. The gain is 12dB and the amplifier is linear up to +17dBm. i.e. This is still linear at the maximum output level of MAR-6SM.

- The total RF transimpedance is ~2k. The DC transimpedance is also 2k.

- The bandwidth is 80MHz with FFD100 and internal 25V bias. When S3399 is used, the bandwdith goes up to 180MHz
although the responsivity of FFD100 at 1064nm is better than S3399 by a factor of 1.5. At the 40m we will use S3399 for the green BB PD.

- By adding an LC network next to the PD, one of the unnecessary signal can be notched out.
As an example, 9MHz notch was placed for the FFD100 case.

- Noise level: ~10pA/rtHz as a floor noise level at around 30MHz. This corresponds to the equivalent dark current of 0.4mA.

Matt has finished the PCB layout. We will order small first batches, and stuff it for the test. Some of these will be the 40m green PD.

Minicircuits ERA-5SM was used for the RF amp of the BBPD. This amp is promising as a replacement of Teledyne Cougar AP389
as ERA-5SM gave us the best performance so far among the BBPDs I have ever tested for the aLIGO BBPD/Green.

The -3dB bandwidth of ~200MHz and the noise floor at the shotnoise level of 0.7mA DC current were obtained.

1. Introduction

The aLIGO BBPD candidate (LIGO Document D1002969-v7) employs Teledyne Cougar AP389 as an RF amplifier.
This PD design utilizes the 50Ohm termination of the RF amp as a transimpedance resistance at RF freq.

However, it turned out that the bandwidth of the transimpedance gets rather low when we use AP389, as seen in the attachment2.
The amplifier itself is broadband upto 250MHz (the transfer function was confirmed with 50Ohm source).
The reason is not understood but AP389 seems dislike current source. Rich suggested use of S-parameter measurement
to construct better model of the curcuit.

On the other hand, the RF amplifiers from Minicircuits (coaxial type like ZFL-1000LN+), in general, exhibit better compatibility with PDs.
If you open the amplifier case, you find ERA or MAR type monolithic amplifiers are used.

So the question is if we can replace AP389 by any of ERA or MAR.

2. Requirement for the RF amp

- The large gain of the RF amp is preffered as far as the output does not get saturated.

- The amplifier should be low noise so that we can detect shot noise (~1mA).

- The freq range of the useful signal is from 9MHz to 160MHz.

The advanced LIGO BBPD is supposed to be able to receive 50mW of IR or 15mW of 532nm. This approximately corresponds to
5mA of DC photocurrent if we assume FFD-100 for the photodiode. At the best (or worst) case, this 5mA has 100% intensity modulation.
If this current is converted to the votage through the 50Ohm input termination of the RF amp, we receive -2dBm of RF signal at maximum.

This gives us a dilemma. if the amp is low noise but the maximum output power is small, we can not put large amount of light
on the PD. If the amp has a high max output power (and a high gain), but the amp is not low noise, the PD has narrow power range
where we can observe the shotnoise above the electronics noise.

What we need is powerful, high gain, and low noise RF amplifier!

Teledyne Cougar AP389 was almost an ideal candidate before it shows unideal behavior with the PD.
Among Minicircuits ERA and MAR series, ERA-5 (or ERA-5SM) is the most compatible amplifier.

Considering the difference of the gain, they are quite similar for our purpose. Both can handle upto -2dBm,
which is just the right amount for the possible maximum power we get from the 5mA of photocurrent.

3. Test circuit with ERA-5SM

A test circuit has been built (p.1 attachment #1) on a single sided prototype board. 

First, the transfer function was measured with FFD-100. With the bias 100V (max) the -3dB bandwidth of ~200MHz was observed.
This decreases down to 75MHz if the bias is 25V, which is the voltage supplied by the aLIGO BBPD circuit. The transimpedance
at the plateau was ~400Ohm.

Next, S3399 was tested with the circuit. With the bias 25V and 30V (max) the -3dB bandwidth of ~200MHz was obtained although
the responsivity of S3399 (i.e. A/W) at 1064nm is about factor of 2 smaller than that of FFD-100.

The noise levels were measured. There are many sprious peaks (possibly by unideal hand made board and insufficient power supply bypassing?).
Othewise, the floor level shows 0.7mA shotnoise level.

The RF amplifier of the prototype BBPD has been replaced from ERA-5SM to MAR-6SM.
The bandwidth is kept (~200MHz for S3399 with 30V_bias), and the noise level got better while the maximum handling power was reduced.

MAR-6SM is a monolithic amplifier from Minicircuits. It is similar to ERA-5SM but has lower noise
and the lower output power.

The noise floor corresponds to the shotnoise of the 0.4mA DC current.
Now the mess below 50MHz and between 90-110MHz should be cleaned up.
They are consistently present no matter how I change the PD/RF amp (ERA<->MAR)/bias voltage.
I should test the circuit with a different board and enhanced power/bias supply bypassing.

Discussion on the RF power (with M. Evans)

- Assume 5mA is the maximum RF (~50mW for 1064nm, ~15mW for 532nm). This is already plenty in terms of the amount of the light.

- 100% intenisty modulation for 5mA across 50Ohm induces -2dBm RF power input for the amplifier.

- Assume if we use MAR-6 for the preamplifier. The max input power is about -18dBm.
  This corresponds to 16% intensity modulation. It may be OK, if we have too strong intensity modulation, we can limit the power
  down to 0.8mA in the worst case. The shot noise will still be above the noise level.

- In the most of the applications, the RF power is rather small. (i.e. 40m green beat note would expected to be -31dBm on the RF amp input at the higherst, -50dBm in practice)
So probably we need more gain. If we can add 10-12dB more gain, that would be useful.

- What is the requirement for the power amplifier?

• Gain: 10~12dB
• Output (1dBcomp): +3dBm +Gain (13dBm~15dBm)
• Noise level / Noise Figure: 3nV/rtHz or NF=14dB
  The output of MAR-6 has the votage level of ~7nV/rtHz. If we bring the power amplifier with input noise of ~3nV/rtHz,
  we can surppress the degradation of the input equivalent noise to the level of 10%. This corresponds to N.F. of 14dB.

Search result for Freq Range 10-200MHz / Max Gain 14dB / Max NF 15dB / Min Power Out 13dBm
GVA-81 is available at the 40m. ERA-4SM, ERA-6SM, HELA-10D are available at Downs.

Conversion between nV/rtHz and NF (in the 50Ohm system)

SN1: Connect signal source (50Ohm output) to a 50Ohm load.
Power ratio between the noise and the signal

SN1 = (4 k T (R/2)) / (S/2)^2

SN2: Connect signal source (50Ohm output) to an RF amp.
Only the voltage noise was considered.

SN2 = (4 k T (R/2) + Vn^2) / (S/2)^2

10 Log10(SN2/SN1) = 10. Log10(1 + 2.42 (Vn / 1nVrtHz)^2)

e.g.
Vn: 0 nVrtHz ==> 0dB
Vn: 0.5 nVrtHz ==> 2dB
Vn: 1 nVrtHz ==> 5dB
Vn: 2 nVrtHz ==> 10dB
Vn: 3 nVrtHz ==> 13.5dB

BBPD update

- The BBPD circuit has been constructed on the aLIGO BBPD board

- It still keeps 200MHz BW with FDD-100 Si PD for the 100V bias.

- The noise spectrum has been cleaned up a lot more. It shows the noise level of the 0.4mA shotnoise between 9-85MHz.
The noise at 160MHz is the noise level of the 1mA shotnoise.

Some of the noise peaks at around 97MHz came from the bias voltage.

What to do next

- Confirmation of the performance with the original aLIGO BB PD configuration.

- Notch filter for 9MHz (for aLIGO).

- Implementation of a power amplifier. (issues: power supply and heat removal)

aLIGO EOM crystal replacement

• The entire operation has been performed at the south flow bench @40m.
• We knew that the original crystal in the aLIGO EOM we are testing has some problem. This was replaced with a spare RTP crystal.
• Once the housing was removed, it was obvious that the crystal has a crack (Attachment 1).
  It seemed that it was produced by either a mechanical stress or a thermally induced stress (e.g. soldering).
• I wanted to make sure the new crystal is properly aligned interms of the crystal axis.
  The original crystal has the pencil marking at the top saying "Z" "12". The new (spare) crystal has "Z" and "11".
  So the new crystal was aligned in the same way as the original one. (Attachment 2)
• I took an opportunity to measure the distribution of the electrode lengths (Attachment 3). The lengths are 14, 5, and 14mm, respectively.

I have been working on the aux beat setup on the PSL table between 9PM-3AM.

This work involved:

- Turning off the main marconi
- Turning off the freq generation unit (incl IMC modulation)
- Closing the PSL shutter

After the work, these were reverted and the IMC and both arms have been locked.

Chris Wipf has been developing a new Noise Budget code that allows us to use our existing Simulink models to handle all of the noise transfer functions. This is mainly by being clever about avoiding the numerical pitfalls that we encounter when doing linearization of Simulink models (e.g. linmod or linmod2).

In this model, the optical plant is done with analytic TFs using the formulae from the Sigg Frequency Response doc. The big Orange block has just the DAC and some simple pendulum TFs. The upper section contains the simulated digital system: input matrix, digital filter TFs, and output matrix. The digital filters are just based on my memory of iLIGO. The CARM path is made to be fast to approximate the high gain of the Common Mode servo. Without this high gain the PRC optical plant is unstable due to the right half plane zeros. This simple model is used just so that we could see the NB work on a multi-loop system. For the next steps of getting it to work for the 40m, we will use the Optickle TFs instead of analytic functions and also load the digital filters directly from the FOTON files. For the LLO DRMI, we'll add some simplified version of the SUS Simulink models for triples and quads.

Yesterday, Nic and I took my old iLIGO IFOmodel.mdl Simulink model and added the new NB hooks that allowed us to use the new code. The screenshot below is from a run of this code:

1) Figure 1 shows the DARM Noise budget. So far we have included shot noise in DARM, CARM, MICH, & PRC. Radiation pressure noise on the ITMs and ETMs. Coating thermal noise on all mirrors.

2) Figure 2 shows the breakdown of how each of the shot noises at each port couple to the DARM readout. The RED trace is the AS port DC readout shot noise. The GREEN trace is the MICH shot noise feeding through the MICH loop and being mostly cancelled by the scalar MICHdamp feedforward path.

3) Figure 3 shows that we've set the coating thermal noise to be equal on all 4 TMs.

4) Figure 78754 is a set of Bode plots of the open loop gains of the 4 LSC loops (inferred from the closed loop TF). Also plotted is the residual MICH2DARM TF (with the MICHdamp cancellation path ON).

5) Figure 9911123 are the step responses of the LSC loops: step inserted at the error point and response measured just after the excitation point.

The editor window on the left shows how simple the NB code is to use once the Simulink model has had all the hooks added to it.

Before installation, I performed a bunch of tests on the aLIGO sat amp. All the measurements were made with the dummy suspension box substituting for an actual suspension. Here are the results.

Attachment #1: Transimpedance amplifier noises.

• Measurement setup: J7 of the Satellite Amp goes to J9 on D1900068 front end (even though the connector is actually labelled "J3" on the box we have - maybe a versioning problem?). The outputs then go to a G=100 SR560 in AC coupled mode (the main purpose here was to block the large DC from the SR785, but I tacked on G=100 while I was at it).  
• Top panel shows the raw measured voltages.
• The bottom panel does a bunch of transformations:
  • Undoes the z:p = 3:30 Hz whitening on board the sat amp.
  • Undoes the G=100 gain of the SR560, and the AC coupling poles/zeros of SR560 and SR785.
  • Converts from voltage to current by dividing by the transimpedance gain, 242 kohms. 
• Some model curves are shown for comparing to the measured spectra. It may be possible that we don't need to modify the nominal z:p = 0.4:10 Hz - I don't think the nominal seismic level will saturate the output even with the 0.4:10 Hz whitening, and it gives us even more clearance to the ADC noise (although we don't need it, we are gain limited at those frequencies, this is mostly a suggestion to reduce the workload).
• The neon green curve is measured with the actual MC1 suspension plugged in, local damping enabled. It doesn't line up with the nosie floor of the bench tests, probably because the cts/um conversion factor could be off by some factor? Around 1 kHz, you can also see some broad peaks that are reminiscent of those seen in the MC_F spectrum after the c1psl Acromag upgrade. I hypothesize this is due to some poor grounding. Hopefully, once we get rid of the single-ended sending/receiving components in the suspension electronics chain, these will no longer be an issue.

Attachment #2: LED drive current source noises. I mainly wanted to check a claim by Rich in a meeting some time ago that the LED intensity fluctuations are dominated by inherent LED RIN, and not by RIN on the drive current. 

• Measurement setup: a pair of pomona mini-grabbers was used to clip onto TP3. I found the voltage noise to be sufficiently high that no preamplification was required, and the DC level was <1V, so I just used the SR785 in AC coupled mode. 
• The dummy suspension box was being driven while the measurement was being made (so the current source is loaded).
• One channel (CH6) shows anomalously high nosie. I confirmed this was present even after the box was plugged in for ~1 day, so can't be due to any thermal / equilibriating transients.
• I didn't check for consistency at the monitor testpoint, but that is exposed even with the MC1 suspension plugged in, so we can readily check. Anyways, from the corresponding photodiode curve in Attachment #1, it would seem that this excess RIN in the drive current has no measurable effect on the intensity fluctuations of the LED (the DC value of the paired PD is consistent with the others, ~6V DC). I must say I am surprised by this conclusion. I also checked for coherence between TP3 and the PD output using the SR785, and found none. 🤔 
• Nevertheless, for the remaining channels, it is clear that the drive current is not shot noise limited for <1kHz. This isn't great. One possible reason is that the collector voltage to Q1 is unregulated (my modeling suggests only ~10dB rejection of collector voltage fluctuations at the output). I believe the current source designed by Luis for A+ makes some of these improvements and so maybe Rich was referring to that design, and not the aLIGO Satellite Amplifier flavor we are using. Anyways, this is just academic I think, the performance is the unit is fine for our purposes.

I will update with the MC1 suspension characterization (loop TFs, step responses etc) later.

Yeah, it's really inconsistent. You had 35mA LED drive and the current noise of the noisy channel was 5e-7 A/rtHz at 1Hz. The RIN is 1.4e-5 /rtHz. The approx. received photocurrent is 30uA as we discussed today and this should make the noise around 4e-10 A/rtHz at 1Hz. However, the readout noise level is better than this level. (well below 1e-10 A/rtHz)

BTW, the IMC seemed continuously locked for 5 hours. Good sign.

[jordan, gautam]

• Ran 60ft long cables from 1X4 to MC1/MC3 chamber flange, via overhead cable tray, and top of PSL enclosure for the last ~20ft. Note that it may be that the overhead cable trays cannot support the weight of the cables for 15 SOSs (total 30 shielded cables with 37 wires as twisted pairs) when we eventually add the optics for the BHD upgrade.
• Installed aLIGO satellite amplifer in 1X4.
• Tapped +/-20 V (which is the available voltage closest to the required +/-18V). For this, the Sorensens were powered down, and the actual taps were made from the fusable blocks powering the Trillium interface box. We made sure to leave an extra slot so that this kind of additional headache is not required for the next person doing such work.
• Once installed, I plugged in the dummy suspension box and verified that the unit performs as expected. 
• Some photos of the installation are here.

After this work, the IMC locked fine, the AS camera has the Michelson fringing, the fast CDS indicators are all green, and the seismometer BLRMS all look good - therefore, I claim no lasting damage was done as a direct result of today's work at 1X4. I will connect up the actual suspension at my leisure later today. Note that the MC1 glitches seem to have gone away, without me doing anything about it. Nevertheless, I think it's about time that we start testing the new hardware. 

Unrelated to this work: while I was testing some characteristics of the MC1 suspension (before we did any work in the VEA, you can see the timestamp in the ndscope), I noticed that the MC1 UL coil channel cannot actually be used to actuate on the optic. The coil driver Vmon channel demonstrates the appropriate response, which means that the problem is either with the Satellite box (it is just a feedthrough, so PCB trace damaged?) or with the OSEM itself (more likely IMO, will know more once I connect the new Satellite Amplifier up). I only show comparison for UL vs UR, but I checked that the other coils seem to be able to actuate the optic. This means we have been running for an indeterminate amount of time with only 3 face actuators on MC1, probably related to me having to do this work. 

Also unrelated to this work - while poking around at 1X5 rear, I noticed that the power connections to the existing Satellite Boxes are (understatedly) flaky, see connections to T1-T4 in Attachment #2..

There is some non-trivial sign flipping in the sensors/coils in this new setup because it is a hybrid one with the old interfacing electronics (D000210, D010001) and the new Satellite Amplifier (D080276). So I haven't yet gotten the damping working. I am leaving the PSL shutter closed and will keep working on this today/tomorrow. I have made various changes to the c1mcs realtime model and the c1susaux database record where MC1 is concerned. I have backups of the old ones so we can always go back to that if we so desire.

In the meantime, the PSL shutter is closed and there is no light to the IFO.

Update 1700: I've implemented some basic damping and now the IMC is now locked. The WFS loop runs away when I enable it, probably some kind of weird interaction with the (as of now untuned) MC1 local damping loops. I will write up a more detailed report later.

Update 2300: Did the following:

1. Re-calibrated the cts2um filter in all SENSOR filter banks to account for the increased transimpedance and LED drive current. I judged the overall scaling to be x0.25 but this can be calibrated against the bounce peak height for example (it lines up pretty well).
2. Re-measured the input matrix - it was very different from what was loaded. I am measuring this again overnight for some consistency.
3. Re-tuned the damping gains. Now the optic damps well, and the loops seem file to me, both via broadband noise injection TF and by step response metrics.
4. Yet, the WFS servo cannot be enabled. The WFS signal is summed in before the output matrix so I don't know why this would have a different behavior compared to the local damping, or indeed, why this has to be changed. Will need some (WFS) sensing/actuation matrix measurements to know more.

Dropping this for tonight, I'll continue tomorrow. Meanwhile, the OSEM input matrix measurement is being repeated overnight. PSL shutter is closed.

The WFS servo was recommissioned. The matrix can be tuned a bit more, but for now, I've recovered the old performance and the alignment doesn't seem to be running away, so I defer further tuning for later. The old Satellite box was handed over to Yehonathan for his characterization of the "spare" OSEMs.

This finishes the recovery of the MC1 suspension, I am now satisfied that the local damping loops are performing satisfactorily, that the WFS servo is also stable, and that POX/POY locking is recovered. On MC1, we even have 4 actuatable face OSEMs and the PIT(YAW) bias adjust slider even moves the optic in PIT(YAW), what a luxury. 

I've SDFed all the changes, and have backup of the old realtime model and C1SUSAUX_MC1 database files if we want to go back for whatever reason. The changes required to make this suspension work are different from what will eventually be required for the BHD suspensions (because of the hybrid iLIGO/aLIGO electronics situation), so I will not burden the readers with the tedious details.

I'm a little mystified. Peeking inside the aLIGO demod board, I saw that the reason that two of the channels weren't working was that their power connectors weren't plugged in, so no real mystery there. 

I hooked up the board at the electronics bench, and found the noise to be completely well behaved, in contrast to the measurements I made when it was in the LSC rack. I've taken it back out to the LSC rack, and given it the X beatnote, and it seems to be performing pretty well. 

I switched between the aLIGO demod board and beatbox during the same lock / beat. The LSC board performs margnially better from 3-100 Hz. The high frequency noise comes from the green PDH loop (coherence is near one above a few hundred Hz), so we don't expect any difference there. 

To me, the beatbox noise looks like there is a broad feature that is roughly the same level as the real cavity motion in the 10-100 Hz range. So, I think we should use the aLIGO board afterall, presuming the noise doesn't shoot back up when I remount it in the rack...

The ALS noise is getting low enough where our normal approach of measuring ALS sensing noise by simply taking the PSD of the signal when the arm is PDH locked is not quite valid anymore, as it is sensing the real cavity fluctuations. Doing a frequency domain coherent subtration of the PSDs suggests a sensing noise RMS of ~150Hz for ALSX. 

When the X arm is locked on ALS, POX sees about 250Hz RMS out of loop noise, which isn't the greatest; however, I used to be happy with 500Hz. By eye, sweeping through IR resonance is smoother. The real test is to get the Y arm ALS running, and swing it through PRFPMI resonance...

Fair warning, the LSC rack area is not so tidy right now, the demod board is resting on a stool (but not in the way of walking down the arm). I'll clean this up tomorrow. 

ALS is not currently limited by the demod board or whitening electronics.

The noise budget in the green locking paper shows the main noise sources to be these two, plus the residual fluctuations of the green PDH loop. 

So, one next step is AUX PDH noise budget. 

However, I wonder how much of the low frequency noise can be explained by instability of the beat alignement on the PSL table, and how this might be quantified. 

Yesterday, I put together a few measurements to asses whether the new demod board has moved us in the right direction. Specifically I measured the output of the phase tracker in the following states, adjusting the phase tracker gain to maintain a ~2kHz UGH (but no boost on):

• Whitening chassis inputs terminated. BEAT_I input channels were given a 3000 count offset to give the phase tracker something to work with. This is a typical beatnote amplitude with the new RF amplifiers. 
• aLIGO LSC demod board driven with an SRS SD345 at 30MHz. (First with +3dBm into the splitter, which is about what it sees with the green beatnotes, then with +13dBm into the splitter, to give the board the +10dBm LO it expects)
• Arms locked with POX, POY. AUX laser temperature servos on. Green beatnotes in the 20-40MHz range. 

Results: The beat frequency spectrum is above the measured demod board and whitening chassis/ADC noise at all frequencies. It's a little close at 10Hz. 

One nice feature is that the beat spectra are far more similar to each other than they used to be. RMS noise is in the 300-400Hz range, which isn't mindblowing, but not terrible. On the order of 50 pm for each arm. Most of this comes from below 10Hz. 

Another thing to note is that, when we switch in the 50m cables, we should win a fair bit of Hz/V gain and push down these noises futher. (We're currently using 30m cables.)

By looking at some coherences, we can attribute some of the noise when IR locked to both colors of PDH loops. 

Specifically, the coherence with the Green PDH error implicates the residual frequency noise of the AUX laser above a few hundred Hz, whereas the feature from 20-50Hz is probably real cavity motion, not ALS sensing noise. Some of the 1-3Hz noise is from real suspension/stack resonances too. 

If it turns out that we do want to push the demod board noise down further, we could think about increasing the RF amplification. Driving the board harder translates directly to better noise performance. The 60Hz harmonics aren't so exciting, but not the end of the world.

Data files are attached, if you're in to that sort of thing. 

We received 20pcs of stuffed demodulator boards from Screaming Circuits today. Some caveats:

1. The AP1053 amplifiers weren't stuffed. Note that this part is no longer in standard production, and lead time for a custom run is ~half a year. I recommend stuffing R2 and using a minicircuits amplifier upstream of this board. We have 6 pcs of AP1053 in hand so we can use those for the first AS WFS, but a second WFS will require some workaround.
2. AD8306ARZ weren't sent to Screaming Circuits. This part is used for the LO and RF signal level detection/monitoring stage, and so aren't crucial to the demodulation operation. @Chub, did we order the correct part now? They are rather pricey so maybe we can just adapt the footprint using some adaptor board?
3. DQS-10-100 hybrid 90 degree splitters were delivered to us after the lot was sent to Screaming Circuits. We have the pieces in hand, so we can just stuff them as necessary.

I removed 1 from the group to stuff some components that weren't sent to Screaming Circuits and test the functionality on the benchtop, the remaining have been stored in a plastic box for now as shown in Attachment #1. The box has been delivered to Chub who will stuff the remaining 19 boards once I've tested the one piece.

The lack of AA filter for MCL signal is RFM model strongly disturbed entering to OAF signal

This morning we attempted to replace the c1sus front end machine with a spare that had been given a second CPU, and therefore 6 additional cores (for a total of 12).  The idea was to give c1sus more cores so that we could split up c1rfm into two separate models that would not be running on the hairy edge of their cycle time allocation.  Well, after struggling to get it working we eventually aborted and put the old machine back in.

The problem was that the c1sus model was running erratically, frequently jumping up to 100 usec of a 60 usec clock allocation.  We eventually tracked the problem down to the fact that the CPUs in the new machine are of an inferior and slower model, than what's in the old c1sus machine.  The CPU were running about 30% slower, which was enough to bump c1sus, which nominally runs at ~51 usec, over it's limit.

This is of course stupid, and I take the blame.  I skimped on the CPUs when I bought the spare machines in an attempt to keep the cost down, and didn't forgot that I had done that when we started discussing using one of the spares as a c1sus replacement.

I think we can salvage things, though, by just purchasing a better CPU, one that matches what's currently in c1sus.  I'll get Steve on it:

c1sus CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5680 3.33GHz

In any event, the old c1sus is back in place, and everything is back as it was.

 I think the idea of having multiple inputs in a LOCKIN module is also good for the LSC sensing matrix measurement.

Because right now I am measuring the responses of multiple sensors one by one while exciting a particular DOF by one oscillator.

Moreover in the LSC case the number of sensors, which we have to measure, is enormous (e.g. REFL11I/Q, REFL33I/Q, REFL55I/Q, ... POY11I/Q,...) and indeed it has been a long-time measurement.

I turned off/on the power to the accelerometers in order to re rout their connections. I found cable connector body-nut  #3 loose to Accelerometer 2X This connector should be checked for solid performance.

When I said "MC1/MC2 accelerometers," I meant the entire three-axis accelerometer set at each point.

All accelerometers are now at the table behind 1X4, cables are near readout box.

 All of the PEM channels seem to be okay right now.  The accelerometers didn't turn out to have any differences in the traces when we put both XYZ triplets right next to each other, so we put them back where they belong.  Gur2 seismometer was showing a few problems, especially with Gur2_X, as Rana posted in elog 2079.  This was solved by tightening the cable screws which hold the Dsub end of the Guralp cable to the front panel of the Guralp box.  All is now well.

Objective:  measure the noise floor on the optical table and the floor so we can decide if the table needs better anchoring before swapping in

                   the larger optical table

The accelerometrs labeled as MC1 ( just north east  of IOO chamber floor ) and MC2 ( north east leg of MC2 table floor ) were moved:

MC1 to the floor at the north west leg of optical table.

MC2 is in the north east corner of the optical table

Atm2 was taken after table leg bolts were tighed at 40 ft/lb

The spectrum looks similar to ETMY     (Guralp for below 3 Hz )  except  the Z direction 

ETMY  .

 Wilcoxon 731A seismic accelerometers and Guralp CMG-40T-old seismometer at magnitude 5 and 4 erthquakes

 24" diameter clear acetate access connector is in place. The 0.01" thick plastic is wrapped around twice to insure air and bug tight barrier for the MC to lock overnight. The acetate transmission for 1064 nm is 90 % This was measured at 150 mW   2.5 mm beam size.

 Aluminum sheet as shown will replace the acetate. Side entries for your arms and "window" on the top will be covered with acetate using double- sided removable-no residue tape 3M 9425

Attached is an example script showing how to access 40m data remotely. The only two nonstandard python modules you need are the nds2 client module and astropy (used for time conversion). For mac users, both of these are available via macports (nds2-client and, e.g. py27-astropy). Otherwise, check out their websites:

https://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/daswg/projects/nds-client.html

https://github.com/astropy/astropy

Have fun!

Finally we got the cold cathode gauge working. IFO pressure 7e-6 Torr-it, vacuum normal valve configuration with all 4 ion pump gate valves closed at ~ 9e-6 Torr.  The cryo pump was also pumped yesterday to remove the accumulated outgassing build up.

The accidental vent was my mistake; made when I was replacing the battery pack of the UPS. The installed pack measured 51 V without any load. The "replace battery" warning light did not go out after the batteries were replaced. 

I then mistakenly and repeatedly pushed the "test" button to reset this, but I did not wait long enough for the batterries to get fully charged. The test put the full load on the new batteries and their charging condition got worse. I made the mistake when trying to put the load from the battery to online and pushed "O" so the power was cut and the computer rebooted to the all off condition. On top of this, I disconnected the wrong V1 cable to close V1.  As the computer rebooted it's interlock closed V1 at 17 Torr.

Never hit O on the Vacuum UPS !

Note: the " all off " configuration should be all valves closed ! This should be fixed now.

In case of  emergency  you can close V1 with disconnecting it's actuating power as shown on Atm3 if you have peumatic pressure 60 PSI 

Microphone preamp box had a low-pass filter at 2kHz, Ayaka changed it to 20 kHz by replacing 100pF capacitor with a 10pF.

We've measured frequency response of the box. Signal from the microphone was split into two. One path went to the box, while another was amplified by the gain 20 (and bandpass filter 1Hz - 300kHz) and sent to spectrum analyzer. Coherence and frequency response were measured using box output and amplified input. Low-pass filter in the box does not limit our sensitivity.

Acoustic noise significantly decreases at frequencies higher then 2kHz. So we need to modify the circuit by adding whitening filter.

I've plugged in PMC length channel into PEM board CH15 through and amplifier (gain=200) that is AC coupled to avoid ~2.5 DC V coming from PMC servo.  I measured coherence with microphone that was located ~30 cm higher. Measurements show contribution of acoustic noise to PMC length in the frequency range 20-50 Hz. In this range PMC length / MC length coherence is ~0.5.

Acoustic noise couples to PMC length in a non-stationary way. 5 minutes after the first measurement I already see much higher contribution. This was already discussed here. I've made C1:X02-MADC3_TP_CH15 a DQ channel at 64kHz. This a fast PMC length channel.

Next step will be to use several microphones located around PMC for acoustic noise cancellation.

 Blue Bird Mic is suspended close to PMC now and outputs ~10 counts when pre-amp gain is 8 dB. This means that the mic outputs ~2.42 mV. Its sensitivity is 27 mV/Pa => acoustic noise is ~0.1 Pa or ~75 dB SPL.

If we buy Panasonic WM61A with their sensitivity -35 dB => they will output ~1.7 mV. We can amplify this signal without adding significant noise. For WM61A S/N ratio is given to be 62 dB. This is for some standard signal that is not specified. For Blue Bird mic it is specified according to IEC 651. So I assume SPL of the standard signal = 94 dB => noise level of WM61A is 32 dB (pretty bad compared to 7 dB-A of Blue Bird). But in our case for PSL S/N ratio is ~43 dB that is not too bad. PSL is noisy due to HEPA, acoustic noise level close to MC2 stack will be less. So we may want to consider Primo EM172/173 where the noise level is claimed to be 18 dB less. I think we should buy several WM61A and EM172.

Mic in the PSL showed that fluctuations in the MCL in the frequency range 10 - 100 Hz are due to acoustic noise. I've measured MCL, MCL / PSL mic coherence 2 times with interval 300 seconds.

Surprisingly, acoustic noise level did not change but MC sometimes is more sensitive to acoustic noise, sometimes less.