I added an U channel based bottom shelf at the south end today.

 I'm working on similar shelf at ETMY.  Precondition: NPRO in bypass mode, heater for doubling in bypass........since power outage?  Optical level servo turned off.......

U-channel based shelf in place.  Oplev servo is back on at 11:15am    The table may moved.  The oplev return is missing the quad by a few milimeter.

This week, the other SURF students and I got acquainted with the caltech campus, LIGO 40m lab and the expectations of the SURF program.  We went to a lot of safety meetings and lectures that established a framework for the jobs we will be doing over the course of the summer.  I went on several tours of the 40m interferometer (one each with Jenne, Jamie and Steve) to get an overview of the layout and specifics of the setup.  I read parts of R. Ward and A. Parameswaran's theses and Saulson's book in order to prepare myself and gain a broader understanding of the purpose of LIGO.

I also began working in Python this week, primarily graphing PSDs of data from the C1:SUS-ETMY_SENSOR_LR, C1:SUS-ETMY_SENSOR_LL, C1:SUS-ETMY_SENSOR_UR, and C1:SUS-ETMY_SENSOR_UL channels.  I will eventually be using Python to generate the plots for the summary pages, so this is good practice.  The code that I have been working on can be found in /users/elizabeth.davison/script5.py.  Additionally, I have been going through the G1 summary pages and attempting to understand the plots available on them and the code that is available.

My plans for the upcoming week begin with modifying my code and potentially calibrating the channel data so that it is in units of length instead of counts.  I will also access the code from the G1 pages and go over it in depth, hopefully gaining insight into the structure of the website.

I tried to make ringdown measurements at the IMC using the DC falling edge as the trigger. Input to the MC was switched off by changing the polarity of the MC servo. But it does not seem to give the needed data as there seem to be several DC falling edges as soon as the polarity is switched. We should think about a better trigger or try to setup data recording from the oscilloscope seamlessly.

Also an ethernet cable has been connected to the router from the oscilloscope at the MC trans, but has not been set up to record data yet.

The ringdown measurements are in progress. But it seems that the MC mirrors are getting kicked everytime the cavity is unlocked by either changing the frequency at the MC servo or by shutting down the input to the MC. This means what we've been observing is not the ringdown of the IMC alone. Attached are MC sus sensor data and the observed ringdown on the oscilloscope.  I think we need to find a way to unlock the cavity without the mirrors getting kicked....in which case we should think about including an AOM or using a fast shutter before the IMC.

P.S. The origin of the ripples at the end of the ringdown still are of unknown origin. As of now, I don't think it is because of the mirrors moving but something else that should figured out.

 It is HIGHLY unlikely that the IMC mirrors are having any effect on the ringdown. The ringdowns take ~20 usec to happen. The mirrors are 0.25 kg and you can calculate that its very hard to get enough force to move them any appreciable distance in that time.

The huge kick observed in the MC sus sensors seem to last for ~10usec; almost matching the observed ringdown decay time. We should find a way to record the ringdown and the MC sus sensor data simultaneously to know when the mirrors are exactly moving during the measurement process. It could also be that the moving mirrors were responsible for the ripples observed later during the ringdown as well.

* How fast do the WFS respond to the frequency switching (time taken by WFS to turn off)? I think this information will help in narrowing down the many possible explanations to a few.

We have done some work at ETMX today. We installed the baffle and placed two mirrors on the table.

The baffle position/orientation still needs to be checked more thoroughly to make sure that the beam will pass through the center of the baffle hole.

One of the two mirrors will stay on the table as pickoff. The other is only temporarily installed for alignment purposes. Later today we will shoot a laser into the chamber that will reflect off one of these mirrors towards the center of ITMX, then go back to the pickoff mirror next to ETMX and hopefully make it through the viewport.

To place the pickoff mirror, we had to move the "cable rack" next to ETMX a few inches towards the back of the table.

The baffle has been moved away from ETMX towards the edge of the table (in fact, it is a little beyond the edge). It is also rotated so that its long edge is horizontal. In this way it was possible to center the baffle hole with respect to the optical axis, but also make it possible that the camera looks over the baffle.

We have tried to get an alignment beam from view port -> ETMX pick-off ->ITMX-> back to EX. This work was pretty much unsuccessful though. We could see the green laser scattering around ITMX, but there was no good way to know when the beam hit ITMX. So tomorrow we will find a better way to check where the beam is hitting at ITMX and finish the alignment of the scattering pick-off mirror.

The alignment of the pick-off mirror near ETMX is done. Everything turned out to be easy once we realized that there is no sense getting the alignment laser (going through viewport to pick-off to ITMX) back to ETMX. It is only necessary to hit ITMX somehow, since this makes sure that there is one scattered beam that will make it from ITMX to pick-off through viewport.

After the auxiliary optic (that we never used in the end) was removed again, we levelled the optical table.

So in the current setup, we can have small-angle scattering measurements on ITMX and large-angle scattering measurements on ETMX.

We have installed the pick-off mirror at the ETMY table for the small-angle scattering measurement on ITMY. As we had already done for the X arm pick-off, the pick-off mirror at ETMY was aligned shooting a green laser normally through the viewport on the pick-off and steering it onto ITMY.

A baffle was also installed at a distance of about 30cm from ETMY near the edge of the table.

With a curvature radius of about 57m for the ETMs, flat ITMs at the beam waist, and using 39m for the arm lengths, one finds that the beam radius at the ETMs is about 5.3mm. The clipping power loss of a 5.3mm beam through a 20mm radius baffle hole would be less than a ppm of a ppm if the beam was perfectly centered. If the baffle hole had 15mm radius, the clipping loss would be 0.01ppm. If the baffle hole had 10mm radius, the loss would be 810ppm. The loss values are calculated using the formula of the  "Gaussian beam" Wikipedia article, "Power through an aperture" section. So I did not check if that one is ok.

 IMC transmission photodiode has been aligned.

 Which PD?  The 'regular' DC one, or the newer one?  Why did it need realigning?  What mirrors did you touch to do the alignment?

Did you do anything else in the last 3 days?  I want to see ALL the gory details, because it can help people doing future measurements, or help us debug if something is wrong with the interferometer later.

MORE WORDS! Thanks.

 No, not the "regular DC one", the "newer one"  along with the controls of the corresponding mirror only i touched.

It needed to be realigned cause last week when we fitted a longer cable there, which may reach the network analyzer, it got misaligned since it got touched.

No other component in that box except that PD and the corresponding mirror controls I touched.

For my last 2 days work, I feel my last elog is reliable.

Today other than doing this, I checked for the higher order modes of the cavity, misaligning one of the MC mirror though the software only. I didn't mention it in my elog cause although I saw the presence of the higher order modes I didn't record it, so I can not upload any picture in support of such a statement.

Thanks

 Summary: Recorded the presence of higher order modes in IMC

What I did: Misaligned the flat mirror MC1 by small amount in both pitch and yaw (it was needed to be done cause at the beginning of the experiment no higher order modes were present)  and scanned the cavity for frequency-range 32MHz to 45MHz.

I found the presence of higher order modes around 36.7MHz (1st order)  and 40.6MHz (2nd order) along with two other strong modes near 35MHz and 42.5MHz.

 Here I am attaching the schematic diagram of the experimental set-up for IMC cavitymode scanning. A 30- 45MHz scanning signal generated by Agilent 4395A network analyzer enters EOM, which in turn modulates the laser beam entering IMC. The cavity response can be verified from reflected/transmitted beam.

I worked with the reflected beam last days. But I got no clue about the percentage of  reflected light reaching the photodiode and also the photodiode response. I would like to measure the power reaching photodiode and also would like to perform the test with transmitted beam - on wednesday if possible.

 Rijuparna, Jenne

Today I checked the optical lay-out in MC REFL board of the MC REFL path on the AS table (I will put the updated diagram in a few hours), and took a record of the reflected power of unlocked MC and power entering MC REFL PD. The power coming out of MC cavity when unlocked is 1.25W and power entering REFL PD 112mW (Jenne measured these powers for me). 

I also got a description of the MC demodulation board from Jenne.

(Edits by Jenne)

 Also, when I walked through the control room later, the WFS were driving the MC crazy.  I turned off / disabled the WFS from the WFS screen.   In my infinite spare time, I need to put in the real-time triggering, so that the WFS turn off as soon as the cavity unlocks. 

 Rijuparna, Manasa

Today I have checked the optical layout of the MC transmission RFPD table and measured the laser powers at different points. Manasa helped me for that. I found the power entering the RF photodiode is 0.394mW while the transmitted power of the cavity is 2.46mW. (I will give the diagram later).

We removed all the folding mirrors ({P,S}R{2,3}) from the IFO and took them into the bake lab clean room.  The idea was that at the very least we would install the new dichroic mirrors, and then maybe replace the suspension wires with thinner ones.

I went in to spend some quality time with one of the tip-tilts.  I got the oplev setup working to characterize the pointing.

I grabbed tip-tilt SN003, which was at PR2.  When I set it up it  was already pointing down by a couple cm over about a meter, which is worse than what we were seeing when it was installed.  I assume it got jostled during transport to the clean room?

I removed the optic that was in there and tried installing one of the dichroics.  It was essentially not possible to remove the optic without bending the wires by quite a bit (~45 degrees).  I decided to remove the whole suspension system (top clamps and mirror assembly) so that I could lay it flat on the table to swap the optic.

I was able to put in the dichroic without much trouble and get the suspension assembly back on to the frame.  I adjusted the clamp at the mirror mount to get it hanging back vertical again.  I was able to get it more-or-less vertical without too much trouble.

I poked at the mirror mount a bit to see how I could affect the hysteresis.  The answer is quite a bit, and stochastically.  Some times I would man-handle it and it wouldn't move at all.  Sometimes I would poke it just a bit and it would move by something like a radian.

A couple of other things I noted:

• The eddy current damping blocks are not at all suspended.  The wires are way too think, so they're basically flexures.  They were all pretty cocked, so I repositioned them by just pushing on them so they were all aligned and centered on the mirror mount magnets.
• The mirror mounts are very clearly purposely made to be light.  All mass that could be milled out has been.  This is very confusing to me, since this is basically the entire problem.  Why were they designed to be so light?  What problem was that supposed to solve?

I also investigated the weights that Steve baked.  These won't work at all.  The gap between the bottom of the mirror mount and the base is too small.  Even the smalled "weights" would hit the base.  So that whole solution is a no-go.

What else can we do?

At this point not much.  We're not going to be able to install more masses without re-engineering things, which is going to take too much time.  We could install thinner wires.  The wires that are being used now are all 0.0036", and we could install 0.0017" wires.  The problem is that we would have to mill down the clamps in order to reuse them, which would be time consuming.

The plan

So at this point I say we just install the dichroics, get them nicely suspended, and then VERY CAREFULLY reinstall them.  We have to be careful we don't jostle them too much when we transport them back to the IFO.  They look like they were too jostled when they were transported to the clean room.

My big question right now is: is the plan to install new dichroics in PR2 and SR2 as well, or just in PR3 and SR3, where the green beams are extracted?  I think the answer is no, we only want to install new dichroics in {P,S}R3.

The future

If we're going to stick with these passive tip-tilts, I think we need to consider machining completely new mirror mounts, that are not designed to be so light.  I think that's basically the only way we're going to solve the hysteresis problem.

I also note that the new active tip-tilts that we're going to use for the IO steering mirrors are going to have all the same problems.  The frame is taller, so the suspensions are longer, but everything else, including the mirror mounts are exactly the same.  I can't see that they're not going to suffer the same issues.  Luckily we'll be able to point them so I guess we won't notice.

When installing the dichroics we need to pay attention to the wedge angle.  I didn't, so the ghost beam is currently point up and to the right (when facing the optic).  We should think carefully about where we want the ghost beams to go.

I also was using TT SN003, which I believe was being used for PR2.  However, I don't think we want to install dichroics in the PR2, and we might want to put all the tip-tilts back in the same spots they were in before.  We therefore may want to put the old optic back in SN003, and put the dichroics in SN005 (PR3) and SN001 (SR3) (see 7601).

The thinner wire has a history that it did not improve the hysteresis (ask Jenne). Nevertheless, it's worth to try.

If you flip the clamp upside-down, you can lift the clamping point up. This will make the gravity restoring torque stronger.
(i.e. Equivalent effect to increasing the mass)

Luckily (or unluckily) the clamp has no defined location for the wire as we have no wire fixture.
Therefore the clamp will grab the wire firmly even without milling.

 Why not? The new dichroic mirrors have more transmission of 1064nm than G&H. Thus it will give us more POP beam and will help locking.

Riju, Jenne

We have checked the transfer function of a bandpass filter using AG4395A network analyzer and retrieved the data through GPIB. The RF out signal of AG4395A had been divided by splitter with two outputs of the splitter going to through R and the filter which was connected to the A channel of the network analyzer. The GPIB data came in complex data format, from which the absolute value and phase had to be retrieved. 

The plot for the TF is as following

 I ve tested another bandpass filter today with similar set-up. This time I took the data with corrected reference level. To set this reference-level the filter was disconnected and the cable was connected "thru" according to the instructions provided in the manual of AG4395A at http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/04395-90040.pdf, page 3-10. The transfer functions are as follows 

I have started making the circuit to measure the transimpedance for the photodiode PDA10CF using Jenne's laser. I will continue it tomorrow.

I repeated my experiment to get noise level. To get that I disconnected the bandpass filter SBP-10.7  from channel A of network analyzer AG4395A and terminated both the open ends (open end of filter and open end of channel A) with 50ohm terminator.

Reference level had been corrected, signal and noise data had been collected separately w.r.t that level.

Command for GPIB:   ./netgpibdata.py -i 192.168.113.105 -d AG4395A -a 10 -f filename

The result is as follows

Photodiode PDA10CF was under test. The RF out signal of AG4395A had been divided by splitter with one output of the splitter going to R channel of the network analyzer and the other to the laser. The splitted laser beams - splitted with beam splitter - fall on two photodiodes - one reference and the other on PDA10CF. The outputs of these two photodiodes go to channel B and A respectively of the network analyzer. The measured transimpedance data had been collected using the GPIB connection.

The result is as follows:

Today I measured the dark current of the PDA10CF. The output of the PD was connected to the A channel of the network analyzer, when there was no light falling on it. The response is collected using GPIB.

I will upload the result shortly.

I have repeated the transimpedance measurement of PDA10CF. Also made the dark current noise measurement by connecting the PDA10CF output to the A channel of network analyzer.  The results are as follows. I I started to take the reading for shot noise intercept current using a light bulb in front of the PD, changing the current through the bulb, but at higher current the bulb filament got broken, so the experiment is incomplete.

Today I have measured the transimpedance and dark-noise of the MC-REFL PD.

For transimpedance measurement I first collected the data of the reference Newfocus PD connecting it at channel B of Network-analyzer using the set-up of Jenne's laser. The data for the MC-REFL PD had been collected by connecting it to the A channel of Network Analyzer. To do that I shifted the Jenne's Laser to the table of MC-REFL PD, I moved the laser output on the table and fixed a lens and a mirror on the table. Taking the ratio of the two sets of datas I got the required trans-impedance.

Dark-noise readings were taken keeping the laser off.

I will upload the corresponding plots tomorrow.

[Jenne, Koji]

D - UL

B - UR

A - LR

C - LL

The sensor card on the bottom of the chamber was not salvaged yet.

 Here I upload the plots corresponding to my last day's measurements.

Summary:

Today I have tested the MC transmission-end RF photodiode PDA255 for transimpedance and dark noise using Jenne's Laser and AG4395A network/spectrum analyzer. The dark noise voltage distribution for the transmission and reflection PDs of MC and the analyzer has been compared.

Motivation:

I am to do the input mode cleaner cavity mode scan. The electronic and shot noise of the components used , particularly photodiode noise, will affect the peak position  of the modes, indicating the uncertainty in the measured frequencies of the modes. That will in turn give the uncertainty in the measured change of radius of curvature of the mirrors in presence of the laser beam, from which we will be able to calculate the uncertainty in the mirror-absorption  value.

Method:

For PD transimpedance measurement I used Jenne's laser along with AG4395 network analyzer. The RF out signal of AG4395A had been divided by splitter with one output of the splitter going to R channel of the network analyzer and the other to the laser. The splitted laser beams - splitted with beam splitter - fall on two photodiodes - one reference(Newfocus1617? PD, the DC and RF transimpedance values were taken from its datasheet ) and the other on PDA255. The outputs of these two photodiodes go to channel B and A respectively of the network analyzer. The measured transimpedance data had been collected using the GPIB connection. It had been ensured that the PD under test is not going to saturation, for that the source power level was kept to -40dBm. transimpedance measurements were compensated by the ratio of DC photocurrent.

For dark noise measurement the output of the PD was connected to the A channel of the AG4395A, when there was no light falling on it. The response is collected using GPIB. The attenuation of channel A was made 0dB. ( AG4395A was kept in Spectrum analyzer mode in Noise Format).

Results:

The plots corresponding to the measurements are attached.

Discussion:

The comparison for the dark noise voltage levels of the MC transmission PD (PDA255) with MC REFL PD has been made with analyzer dark noise voltage. It is shown in the attachment (I will upload the dark noise current comparison too....since the output darknoise depends on the gain of the circuit, it is important to divide this voltage spectra by transimpedances.)

[Manasa, Jenne]

First plug in only one of the quadrupus cables, find out what coil it corresponds to according to screen, then plug in 2nd cable, don't test already-determined cable, but all other 3, find what cable it corresponds to according to the screen.  Repeat for other 2 cables.

TT2, confirmation:

C = LL, not UR, not UL, not LR

D = UL, not UR, not LR

A = LR, not UR

B = UR

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After confirming that the correct quadrupus cables were plugged in to the correct coils, I suspected that our problems could be coming from a (or some) magnet(s) touching the inside of the OSEM.  We tested this a little bit, with the goal of finding the range of values where no magnets are touching.

All matrix values are either +1000 or -1000, so, with an example pitch slider value :

                       PIT    YAW

Pit slider           |  1000   1000  | --->  -22000 UL


     -22.2           | -1000   1000  | --->  +22000 LL


Yaw slider           |  1000  -1000  | --->  -22000 UR


    0                | -1000  -1000  | --->  +22000 LR

Trying some values for pitch, keeping yaw constant:

0 yaw, Pitch bias = 5 -> UR is touching on left side of its osem.

0 yaw, Pitch 0, UR is touching left side.

0 yaw, -1.2 pitch, UR just came off from touching left side.  More neg from here should be non-touching.  all others are fine.

0 yaw, -32.2 pitch, LR not quite touching right side of osem, but is close (much less than 1mm clearance).  UR fine. all others fine.

0 yaw, -22.2 pitch, all 4 are fine.

Trying some yaw values, keeping pitch constant:

1.  -22.2 pitch, -32 yaw, LR touching. UR touching.

2.  -22.2 pitch, -12 yaw, LR barely not touching, UR still touching.

3.  -22.2 pitch, 0 yaw, UR still touching.

4.  -22.2 pitch, 16 UR barely not touching.

5.  -22.2 pitch, 32, none touching.

6.  -22.2 pitch, 12, UR close, not touching.

7.  -22.2 pitch, 0, UR touching.

8.  -22.2 pitch, 32 (or 30?) UR came off.

9.  -22.2 pitch, -25, UR close

10.  -22.2 pitch, -32 UR touching.

11.  -22.2 pitch, -4 UR not touching.

12.  -22.2 pitch, 0 yaw, UR not touching.

Here is a graphical semi-representation for the yaw data:

 [Manasa, Jenne]

The motion of the magnets (~1.5mm estimated by looking at the magnets moving) correspond to ~2deg. tilt of the mirror. This would mean almost 1.5m shift at the ETM end (~45m from the TT).

Today I have taken the reading for shot noise intercept current for the PDA255 - MC transmission RF PD. To do that I have put an incandescent bulb (JKL lamps, 222 bulbs, voltage and current rating 2.25V and 0.25A) in front of the PD and varied the current through it from 0A to 0.29A at 2.2V. I measured the corresponding DC voltage and took the noise data (4395A spectrum analyzer/ format noise, channel attenuation 0dB) through GPIB .

I will process the data and upload the result soon.

Riju

Summary:  I am stuck with the measurement of shot-noise-intercept-current of PDA255. Seeking help.

Motivation: It is to measure the shot noise intercept current for PDA255 - the MC transmission RF photodiode to get an idea for the noise current for the detector.

Method: It is as described in the elog  7907 

Result: The plot is attached here.

Discussion: The result I got is really unexpected, the noise voltage should increase with the DC current level that corresponds to the increment of light level too. But actually it is decreasing. Three times I have repeated this experiment and got the same result. I want some suggestion on this regard.

- The data should be plotted in a log-log scale.
- The data points were only taken in the high current region.

- The plot may suggest that the amplifier saturate at the RF.

PDA255 has the nomial transimpedance gain of 10^4 Ohm.
The DC current of 10^-3 gives the output of 10V.
This plot may tell that the saturation starts even at the 1/10 of the full DC range.

The plot doesn't have many points below 0.1mA.
Consult with my plots for the similar measurements.
The measured points are logarithmically spaced. Use the same technique.

- It is also very unknown that how the noise level is calculated. No info is supplied in the plot or the elogs.

 Here I am attaching the plot in loglog scale. I have taken the data-points from no light condition to the maximum light condition, the minimum variation possible in the current supply was 0.01A. The noise was visibly decreasing at higher light level.

For the noise level calculation I took the average of total noise in the range 7-60MHz. For each range the formula used was

noisevalue= sqrt(data(:,2)*100)/sqrt(2)/sqrt(channel BW);     -- this conversion is needed since the data was collected in the 2 column format: frequency, spectrum(W).

Today I have repeated the expt for shot noise intercept current. Koji found that the Spectrum analyzer is going to saturation, so we have used one DC blocker (MCL - 15542 model) in PD signal.

I will analyze the data and report.

Ed by Koji: DC BLOCK is  BLK-89-S

Summary: Measurement and plot of shot-noise-intercept-current for PDA255.

Motivation:It is to measure the shot noise intercept current for PDA255 - the MC transmission RF photodiode to get an idea for the noise current for the detector

Result: The final plot is attached here. The plot suggests that the value of shot-noise-intercept current is 3.06mA

Discussion:

The plot is for the measured data of Noise voltage (V/sqrt(Hz)) vs DCcurrent(A). The fitted plot to this measured data follows the noise equation

Vnoise = gdet* sqrt[ 2e (iDC+idet)] ,  where gdet= transimpedance of the PD in RF region as described in manual of PDA255 (i.e. 5e3 when it is not in High-impedance region).

On the other hand for DCcurrent calculation we must use the high-impedance value for the transimpedance i.e. 1e4 Ohm. idet is the shot noise intercept current.

For the rough calculation of the noise level we may use the following formulae:

Vnoise = gdet*sqrt[2e (iDC+idet)] = gdet*sqrt(2e in), when in=iDC+idet;

For say, in1=1mA; Vnoise1=gdet*sqrt(2e *in1)

and sqrt(2e *in1)~18pA/sqrt(Hz)

In current case dark noise is ~1.5e-7 V/sqrt(Hz)

Therefore dark current(in2) ~dark noise voltage/RF transimpedance = 30pA/sqrt(Hz)

i.e. sqrt(2e *in2)=30pA/sqrt(Hz)

i.e. sqrt(in2/in1)=30/18

therefore, in2~3mA (since in1=1mA)

For, iDC=0, in=idet.

Therefore the shot-noise-intercept current will be ~3mA

Then Vdc = in2*1e4 = 30V

According to the experiment  and also from the PDA255 manual the DC voltage level never goes beyond ~10V. Therefore following the photodiode characteristics(we work in reverse bias) we may infer that it can never become shot noise limited.

Also, from PDA255 manual, at 1650nm the dark noise is 30pW/sqrt(Hz) and the responsivity is 0.9A/W. Therefore the noise current level will be = noise power* responsivity ~27pA/sqrt(Hz). The value matches well with our expectation.

Today I have taken data for shot noise intercept current for PDA10CF. I will process the data and report.

Note: GPIB address changed, new command for AG4395A network/spectrum analyzer: ./netgpibdata.py -i 192.168.113.108 -d AG4395A -a 10 -f filename

Today I collected the data for shot noise intercept current for MC REFL PD. I didn't get many data points at higher DC voltage of the photodiode, cause the incandescent bulbs get burnt at that level; two bulbs I have burnt today. I will process the data and report.

Summary: Measurement and plot of shot-noise-intercept-current for PDA10CF. 

Motivation:It is to measure the shot noise intercept current for PDA10CF.

Result: The final plot is attached here. The plot suggests that the value of shot-noise-intercept current is 0.21mA

Discussion:

The plot is for the measured data of Noise voltage (V/sqrt(Hz)) vs DCcurrent(A). The fitted plot to this measured data follows the noise equation

Vnoise = gdet* sqrt[ 2e (iDC+idet)] ,  where gdet= transimpedance of the PD in RF region as described in manual of PDA255 (i.e. 5e3 when it is not in High-impedance region).

To get an approximate idea of the shot noise intercept current, we may follow the same procedure described in 7946 

In the present case dark-noise is 4.3e-08 V/sqrt(Hz)

Therefore dark current(in2) ~dark noise voltage/RF transimpedance = 8.6pA/sqrt(Hz)

Therefore the approximate shot noise intercept current ~ (8.6/18)^2=0.22mA

This value matches well with the fitted data.

From PDA10CF manual, NEP=1.2e-11W/sqrt(Hz) and responsivity~0.9A/W. Therefore the noise current level will be ~10pA.

 Summary: Measurement and plot of shot-noise-intercept-current for MC REFL PD. 

Motivation:It is to measure the shot noise intercept current for MC REFL PD.

Result: The final plot is attached here. The plot suggests that the value of shot-noise-intercept current is 0.041mA

Discussion:

The plot is for the measured data of Noise voltage (V/sqrt(Hz)) vs DCcurrent(A). The fitted plot to this measured data follows the noise equation

Vnoise = gdet* sqrt[ 2e (iDC+idet)] ,  where gdet= transimpedance of the PD in RF region as described in manual of PDA255 (i.e. 5e3 when it is not in High-impedance region).

To get an approximate idea of the shot noise intercept current, we may follow the same procedure described in 7946 

In the present case minimum noise value is 2.03e-08 V/sqrt(Hz)

Therefore dark current(in2) ~dark noise voltage/RF transimpedance = 4.06pA/sqrt(Hz)

Therefore the approximate shot noise intercept current value is (4/18)^2 ~ 0.049mA, which is close to the fitted value.

 ... hard to believe these numbers. Wrong DC transimpedance? (KA)

 Summary: Measurement and plot of shot-noise-intercept-current for MC REFL PD. 

Motivation:It is to measure the shot noise intercept current for MC REFL PD.

Result: The final plot is attached here. The plot suggests that the value of shot-noise-intercept current is 1.9mA

Discussion:

The plot is for the measured data of Noise voltage (V/sqrt(Hz)) vs DCcurrent(A). The fitted plot to this measured data follows the noise equation

Vnoise = gdet* sqrt[ 2e (iDC+idet)] ,  where gdet= transimpedance of the PD in RF region ~600

To get an approximate idea of the shot noise intercept current, we may follow the same procedure described in 7946 

In the present case minimum noise value is 1.46e-08 V/sqrt(Hz)

Therefore dark current(in2) ~dark noise voltage/RF transimpedance ~25pA/sqrt(Hz)

Therefore the approximate shot noise intercept current value is (25/18)^2 ~ 1.92mA, which matches well to the fitted value.

 I spent awhile today reading about op-amps and understanding what would be necessary to design a circuit which would directly give pitch and yaw of the QPD I am using. After getting an idea of what signals would be summed or subtracted, I opened up the QPD to take better pictures than last time (sorry, the pictures were blurry last time and I didn't realize). It turns out some of the connections have been broken inside the QPD, which would explain why we saw an unchanging signal in Ch2 on the oscilloscope yesterday when trying to test the laser setup. 

I found a couple other QPDs, which I will be using to help understand the circuit (and what is going on). I will be trying to use the same QPD box since it has banana cable and BNC cable adapters, which is helpful to have in the lab. Once I have concluded what the circuitry is like and designed electronics to add and subtract signals, I will build and mount all the circuits within the box (more sturdily than last time) so as to have a quality way of measuring the mount vibrations when I get there. 

 I took better pictures of the circuits of the QPD and spent a couple of hours with a multimeter trying to figure out how all the connections worked. I will continue to do so and analyze the circuits over the weekend to try to understand what is going on. I also have an old SURF report that Eric sent me that is similar to the design I was planning to use to sum the pitch and yaw signals. I will try and look at this over the weekend.