ELOG 40m

Re: Abs. Length Meas. setup

I tried to look for the beating in the signal from the PD but I couldn't find. I had the temperature of the laser initially set to 40deg and then slowly increased by one degree. The manual of the laser says the frequency should change by several GHz. The problem is then that our PD is limited to no more than 30Mhz.

Although the two beams seem to overlap quite well, we might still need a better matching of the injected beam.

Alberto

Quote:

o The position of the iris was adjusted so as not to disturub the beam for OMCR CCD.

o The RF spectrum analyzer was returned to the place of the network analyzer.

Quote:

In the process of making this report, I noticed that one of the iris apertures is about disturbing the beam for OMCR CCD. I will check this before I go to Hanford. Also an RF spectrum analyzer is at the AP table. I try to return this near the PSL on Monday morning.

620

Wed Jul 2 00:59:13 2008

Masha

balanced detection, noise plots, progress

Auxiliary locking

Progress report submitted today(!). It is on the 40m wiki page. Below is a figure of some estimated noise sources.

Made voltage divider that acts as an attenuator for one of the paths in the Mach Zehnder, which should help to balance the detection and reduce noise.

First tested using a 636 Hz Matlab generated audio signal (thanks to John inspiration on portable headphones). Figure is attached, with plots of noise spectra of original and optimized signal with and without added acoustic noise (visible as peaks as 636 and 1272 Hz, linewidth approx 4 Hz). My first try at optimization reduces the noise by nearly an order of magnitude for most frequencies.

Will work on finding different noise source to better see what happens at low frequency, and try to get finer control of tunable gain.

Attachment 1: noise_sources.pdf

Attachment 2: balancing_detectors.png

623

Wed Jul 2 13:56:10 2008

Work continues on trying to reduce the CARM offset using dc signals from PO_DC. Got up to arm powers of
~35 last night.

We found that progress was stymied by an oscillation around 24 Hz. This oscillation was clearly visible
in the intensity of the light at REFL, PO and TrX.

Initially we suspected that this oscillation was due to an instability in the CARM loop. We attempted to
solve the problem by tuning the crossover frequncy of the AO and MC_L paths and shaping the MC_L loop to
reduce the impact of the 24 Hz noise.

After some quick tests we found that the 24 Hz signal was present even when dc CARM was used. It appears
that the peak is in fact due to a SOS mechanical resonance. We currently suspect a roll mode.

We're going to check that PRC, MICH and DARM have filters to attenuate the 24 Hz line. We'll also look at the
SUS_POS bandstop filters to see where they are centred.

The ISS was behaving strangely again. Constantly saturated at 5dB of gain. Someone needs to look a this.

Attachment 1: locking080702.png

624

Wed Jul 2 15:14:42 2008

I placed baked razor beam trap after INJ_SM1 and flipper in the injection path on the AP table

Quote:

I have constructed the beam injection optics for the abs length measurement.

The injection beam was coarsely aligned to the interferometer. The reflected beam from SRM was already seen at AS CCD.
I have attached the optical configration for this measurement and the optics layout at the AP table.

I am going to go to LHO for three weeks. During the absence Alberto tunes the mode matching and the alignment of the interferometer.

In the process of making this report, I noticed that one of the iris apertures is about disturbing the beam for OMCR CCD. I will check this before I go to Hanford. Also an RF spectrum analyzer is at the AP table. I try to return this near the PSL on Monday morning.

Attachment 1: Optical configuration for the abs length measurement.
1) One of the arms is locked to the PSL beam by the main control system (red).
2) A laser beam is injected from the AS port (blue). This laser essentially has different frequency from that of PSL.
3) The injected beam and the outgoing PSL beam appear at the output of the faraday in the injection system.
4) They beat each other at the frequency difference of those two lasers.
5) A PLL is used to lock the frequency difference to a local oscillator (LO).
6) The LO frequency is swept at around 3.87MHz, that is the approximate FSR frequency of the arm cavity.
7) If the LO frequency hits the FSR within the resonant width, the beating also appears at the transmitted light as the injected beam also becomes resonant to the arm cavity.
8) Amplitude of the beating at the transmitted light is measured by a RF spectrum analyzer as a function of the LO frequency. We get the FSR frequency (= the arm cavity length) from the top of the resonance.

Attachment 2: Optics at the AP table for the laser injection
700mW NPRO, laser source. vertically polarized.
Periscope, to raise the beam 1 inch to make the beam at the 4 inch elevation.
INJ_SM1/INJ_SM2, steering mirrors to align the injection beam to the IFO beam.
HWP1, half wave plate to make the beam to the farady horiz-polarized. nominal 42deg on the readout.
FI, Faraday isolator for protection of the NPRO from the returning light, for obtaining the returning light.
HWP2, to make the beam from the Faraday horiz-polarized. nominal 357deg on the readout.
MM_Lens, f=125mm to match the laser mode to the IFO beam.
SM1/SM2, steering mirrors to align the IFO beam to the Farady Isolator.
IRIS1/IRIS2, for the coarse alignment of the injection beam.
FLIP, flipper mount to turn on/off the injection optics.

Alignment procedure of the injection system
0) Ignite NPRO several hours before the experiment so that the laser frequency can be stable.
1) Turn up FLIP. Close the shutter of NPRO.
2) Adjust SM1/SM2 so that the ifo beam can appear at the output of FI.
3) Adjust height and position of IRIS1/IRIS2 with regard to the ifo beam so that the ifo beam goes through IRIS1/IRIS2 even when they are closed.
4) Turn down FLIP. Open the shutter of NPRO.
5) Adjust INJ_SM1/INJ_SM2 so that the injection beam can go through IRIS1/IRIS2 even when they are closed.
6) At this time, it is expected that the reflection of the injection beam from SRM appears at AS CCD, if SRM is aligned.
7) Adjust INJ_SM1/INJ_SM2 so that the injection beam at AS CCD can overlap to the IFO beam.
8) Confirm the beam at the output of the FI also overlaps.
---- We are here ----
9) Change the ifo configuration to the X or Y arm only.
10) Scan the crystal temperature of the 700mW NPRO in order to try to have the beating of the two beams at the PD. AS OSA may be useful to obtain the beating.
11) Once the beating is obtained, adjust INJ_SM1/INJ_SM2 such that the beating amplitude is maximized.

626

Wed Jul 2 18:30:01 2008

I aligned the beams on the following QPDs

IP POS
IP ANG
MC TRANS
IOO POS

Attachment 1: IOO080702.png

Attachment 2: MC080702.png

627

Wed Jul 2 19:15:52 2008

Status of the alignment of the NPRO beam for the Absolute Length Measurement

Today I've tried to bring the frequency of the NPRO laser close enough to that of the IFO beam so that the beat between the two beams can be at a detectable frequency for the photodiode. The way I've been changing the frequency is by the NPRO's temperature control on its driver.

Looking at the signal from the AS OSA should enable us to monitor the direction in which the frequency is changing. Every time the resonances of the IFO beam and of the NPRO beam overlap, we know that the frequencies of the two beams are some FSR of the OSA away from each other. At the overlapping of the resonances, if the difference of frequency is within the detectable range of the photodiode, we should see a peak in the network/spectrum analyzer.

This way turned out not very easy in practice because from the AS OSA one can hardly distinguish the resonances of the primary beam from those of the secondary beam. The cause is mainly the flashing of the IFO beam at the AS port which produces a pattern of resonances of different amplitude. Also for some reason, triggering the output signal from the OSA at the oscilloscope doesn't work very well.

However, even if we didn't have these problems, I think that the two beams are not very well aligned, at least not anymore. I'm attaching some pictures from the AS port. The bright spot on the left is the NPRO beam and the one in the center which flashes is the IFO beam. We probably need some more work in the alignment of the NRPO beam.

Attachment 1: DSC_0156.JPG

Attachment 2: DSC_0158.JPG

628

Thu Jul 3 11:53:30 2008

Status of the alignment of the NPRO beam for the Absolute Length Measurement

The method itself looked fine.

Use of the one arm configuration will make the work easier as constant power at the AS port is obtained.
How much is the FSR of the OSA?

Apparently the alignment is not good any more as Alberto pointed. Everytime you touch the flipper you'd better to adjust it. Then, if necessary, adjust the injection steerings.

If the PSL beam is blocked, only the injection beam appears at the optical ports. The spot is obtained at the AS port and the SY port (REFL) at the same time. I recommend to confirm the transmittion to the SY port too by the CDD, the card, and whatever. Note that this may be difficult because this will have the beam power of below 1 mW.

Quote:

Alberto> Today I've tried to bring the frequency of the NPRO laser ...

630

Thu Jul 3 13:12:32 2008

Bounce/ roll filters were added to the short degrees of freedom to reduce the effect of the 24Hz line seen on Tuesday night.

However last night saw the arrival of a new oscillation at ~34Hz. This may be the second harmonic of the MOS roll mode. Reducing the arm offset would cause this oscillation to ring up and break the lock (first plot). This effect was repeatable.

No signal was seen in the oplevs or osems which leads us to rule out alignment problems, at least for now.

Although one can clearly see DARM_ERR increasing as arm power increases adding a resonant gain in the DARM loop had no effect.

We also noticed that x arm transmission was significantly more noisy than the Y (second plot). And showed greater coherence with the increase in DARM noise. Investigations showed that the PD was not the source of the difference.

Turning up the MC gain seems to help a little.

We're now looking at POX as a candidate for RF_CARM (third plot).

Attachment 1: LOL.png

Attachment 2: NoisyX080702.png

Attachment 3: POXforCARM080702.png

634

Thu Jul 3 18:48:09 2008

Beats of the two lasers in the absolute length measurement observed

I adjusted the alignment of the flipper mirror as suggested by Koji making the two beam spots match. I also aligned all the IFO mirrors (ITMs, PRM, SRM, ETMs) to have more power for the IFO signal at the AS port. When I did that I could see the beats at the AS OSA. Then I explored the range of temperature of the NPRO from 35deg (C) to 51.2807deg and at that point I could observe a peak corresponding to the beat at about 10MHz on the network analyzer. The peak tends to drift because the laser takes probably a longer time to actually thermalize and it moves very rapidly changing the temperature of the laser.

635

Thu Jul 3 22:54:45 2008

Beats of the two lasers in the absolute length measurement observed

Great! Conguraturation! I wish if I could see it! It's nice if you can put the photo or anything of the RF spectrum analyzer.

Next step:
o You can try to maximize the beat amplitude by the tuning of the Injection steering mirrors.

o At the south end of the SP table, I prepared a frequency mixer. You can put the beat signal into the RF input, and an oscillator (which you can bring from somewhere) to the LO input in order to obtain the error signal of the PLL. Put the IF output of the mixer in a SR560, and please try to lock it by a simple 6db/oct (1st order) LPF of the SR560. For the actuator you can use the fast-pzt input of the NPRO.

Quote:

Then I explored the range of temperature of the NPRO from 35deg (C) to 51.2807deg and at that point I could observe a peak corresponding to the beat at about 10MHz on the network analyzer.

637

Mon Jul 7 11:22:02 2008

Beats of the two lasers in the absolute length measurement observed

I didn't post a screenshot from the RF SA because I had troubles with the interface with the computer (unfortunately the network SA cannot export the data either).

There is problem with the PLL circuit. The signal, beside the beat, also contains peaks at 33, 66 and 99 MHz, so we should think about filtering those out.

Quote:

Then I explored the range of temperature of the NPRO from 35deg (C) to 51.2807deg and at that point I could observe a peak corresponding to the beat at about 10MHz on the network analyzer.

638

Mon Jul 7 13:06:38 2008

Beats of the two lasers in the absolute length measurement observed

One may need an RF filter after the mixer. I expect the SR560 does work for this purpose.
If it does not, a passive LPF can be used.

Quote:

I didn't post a screenshot from the RF SA because I had troubles with the interface with the computer (unfortunately the network SA cannot export the data).

There's is problem with the PLL circuit. The signal, beside the beat, also contains peaks at 33, 66 and 99 MHz, so we should think about filtering those out, correct?

641

Mon Jul 7 14:02:05 2008

Yoichi

Computers

SVN conversion progress

So far /cvs/cds/caltech/medm, /cvs/cds/caltech/chans and /cvs/cds/caltech/scripts have been converted to svn working copies.
Now /cvs/cds/caltech/target is being converted.

642

Mon Jul 7 16:30:08 2008

PSL-PEM 16 days trend

This morning the laser head temp was up to 20.3C because the laser chiller was overflowing.
I removed 700 cc water.

The PSL-FSS_RMTEMP became much more stable during the holidays as the psl enclosure was closed for 4 days

The high particle counts can be explaned by construction activity today.

The PMC & MZ PZT high voltages were out of range this morning.

Attachment 1: pempsl16d.jpg

643

Mon Jul 7 19:15:38 2008

Optics alignement on the ABS length experiment

Today I started setting up the PLL instruments to lock the frequency of the NPRO beam to the IFO beam. with no need of a new alignment after the weekend I was able to see the beat again, although this time I found at a different temperature of the NPRO laser of about 54 degrees (vs 51 of the last time).
I've got the Marconi as local oscillator (LO), the mixer Koji suggetsed, the SR560 and a 5 MHz low pass filter to cut the 33, 66 and 99 MHz present in the output signal from the PD. The filter worked well and I was able to single out only the beat resonance from the power spectrum.
In the attempt to enhance the amplitude of the beat, as Koji suggested, I tried to work on the alignment of the steering mirrors. While I was doing that, for some reason the pre-modecleaner lost the alignment and I had to ask John to help me lock it again. during the process I lost the old alignment but at the end I got a new one, apparently (from the camera) even better than the other. Although after that the beats were gone. Actually after the lock-in of the PMC the IFO beam didn't look as good as before, so it might be also for that reason.

I'll try again tomorrow, after that probably tonight Rob is going to reset the alignments of the interferometers.

645

Tue Jul 8 08:16:56 2008

The PMC is unhappy. PMC auto locker is not working.
DC output slider adjust has to be moved from rail to rail before it locks.

MZ is working great.

Attachment 1: pmc.jpg

646

Tue Jul 8 10:20:10 2008

It is specially important to run the PSL-HEPA filters when inside counts is peaking at 30,000 counts

There is a small label at the hepa on/off switch:
enclosure open 100%,
low noise off,
normal 60% of Variac voltage setting on the top of the enclosure

Not running the HEPAs will lower the temp fluctuations from 1.5 to o.5 degree C
at the cost of particle counts from 0 to immidiate room counts.

Attachment 1: hepa.jpg

647

Tue Jul 8 10:26:30 2008

Yesterday I changed one of the beam splitters in the Mach Zehnder to one with a more stable mount as to reduce the system's coupling to environmental noise.

With help from John, I worked out how to get the signals from the two channels of the interferometer into the digital system. I put up BNC cables along part of the Y arm to connect the output of the detectors into the digital channels.

650

Tue Jul 8 21:58:22 2008

alberto

Secondaty beam aligned to the IFO beam again

Yesterday the alignment of the secondary beam to the IFO was completely lost and today I had to realign all the optics before I was able to match the two spots again. I had to reset the height of the irises and I had also to replace mirror M1 with one with a larger angular motion. Eventually I obtained the beat again. Working on the optics table I inadvertently misaligned the OSA but I didn't make in time to bring it back before the night shift people came. I'll work on that tomorrow morning.

651

Wed Jul 9 12:42:14 2008

Rob, Yoichi, John

Last night we were able to reduce the CARM offset to around 80. This was achieved by increasing the DARM gain and
switching to AS_I when AS_Q went bad. This is probably a temporary solution, we will probably switch to DC readout
for DARM as we bring the arms on resonance.

Having reduced the arm offset enough to get us into the linear region of the RF_CARM signal (POX_I) we worked on
analogue conditioning of this signal to allow us to hand over. Lock was maintained for over 20 minutes as we did
this work.

We were able to partially switch over both the frequency and length paths to this new signal before losing lock.

Attachment 1: LongLock080709.png

655

Thu Jul 10 14:59:01 2008

rob

RF common mode at zero offset

Locking

rob, john, yoichi

Last night we succeeded in reducing the CARM offset to zero.

We handed off control of the common mode servo from PO-DC to POX-I.

We pushed the common mode servo bandwidth to ~19kHz. Without the boosts, it had ~80 degs of phase margin. Didn't measure it after engaging the boosts (Boost + 1 superboost). Trying to engage the second superboost stage broke the lock.

The process is fully scripted, and the script worked all the way through several times.

The DARM ugf was ~200Hz. The RSE peak could clearly be seen. No optical spring, as expected (we're locking in anti-spring mode).

Engaging test mass de-whitening filters did not work (broke the lock).

I'm attaching a lock control sequence diagram and a trend of the arm power during a scripted up-sequence. I think the script can be sped up significantly (especially the long ramp period).

Up next:

Calibrated DARM spectrum
Noise hunting (start with dewhites)
DC - Readout
Lock to the springy side.

Attachment 1: lock_control_sequence_worked.png

Attachment 2: trendpowerbuild.png

656

Thu Jul 10 19:12:07 2008

abs cavity length measurement experiment

Yesterday morning, when I started, I found the IFO beam on a different position and the beam spot at the AS port looked very deformed. The overlapping with the secondary beam was not good enough to observe the beats anymore. Restoring the alignments of the interferometers did not work because, as John found out later, some of the photodiodes had offsets and gain which made the restore script ineffective. After resetting the parameters, we had to align every mirror of the interferometers and save the configuration twice. The second times was because on the first time the alignment had been done with the illuminators on. To avoid that in the future, John wrote an alarm to warn about the status of the lights.

After that we fixed the IFO beam, I had to realign the optics in the table to match the secondary beam to the IFO beam. I got the two beam overlapping and, even though the NPRO spot looked distorted, I could observe again some signal of the beat. To do that it was also necessary to have all the interferometer mirrors aligned so that we had more power from the ifo beam although it also made the spot flash. Ideally, to avoid the flashing (which we would also impede the PLL to work) we should work with the interferometer locked. Since that doesn't seem actually possible, we should just keep one of the ITM aligned and improve the beam matching so that we can observe the beats even with less power.

Today I spent the day trying to improve the alignement of the optics to observe the beats with only the ITM aligned, resetting the alignment of both beams with the ireses, with the Farady and all the rest. It was a rather long and tiring process but I think I'm close to the target and maybe tomorrow.

659

Fri Jul 11 09:29:02 2008

the PMC still hangs up

Morning alarms:

PMC high voltage is railing, it's auto locker is frosen
I have to move DC Output Adjust slider by hand and it locks immediately

PSL_ISS is saturating. Saturation goes away when PMC is locked.

Laser chiller water is overflowing again: removed 450 cc water

Attachment 1: pmc4d.jpg

661

Fri Jul 11 23:55:25 2008

alan

RF common mode at zero offset

Locking

Quote:

rob, john, yoichi

Last night we succeeded in reducing the CARM offset to zero.

Congratulations! Well done! I look forward to hearing the details and further progress!

662

Sat Jul 12 23:28:31 2008

As everyone has noticed recently, the PMC seems to have a PZT problem. It often zooms
of to one of its rails after locking as if the PZT range has decreased dramatically.

WE should check this on Monday by disabling the FSS and applying a slow triangle wave to
the NPRO frequency. The PMC will track this frequency change and this will allow us to
diagnose its problems.

If it has real problems, I have a spare in W. Bridge which we can swap in temporarily.

The attached plot shows 3 years of trend; looks like it went bad in summer of last year.

This also seems to be the cause of our ISS saturation problems: lowering the gain of the PMC
even slightly increased the intensity noise enough to cause saturation. Increasing the gain
even slightly increased the intensity noise enough to cause saturation due to PMC servo oscillation.

Attachment 1: Untitled.png

668

Mon Jul 14 19:15:43 2008

abs cavity length measurement experiment

Lately I've been dealing with the alignment of the interferometer to have a good beam spot at the AS port. Today the alignment script kept failing because of computer problems (failure of the frame builder) and also because the IFO was probably too far from the range where the automatic alignment works.

An other problem I keep having with the alignment of the optics on the AP table is with multiple reflection beams of the NPRO beam at the Farady.
Although I believe that now the two beams are quite well aligned, I don't see any reflection of the secondary beam from the IFO anymore.

It's like the more I try to improve the alignment, the worse I get from the beam matching. I'll keep working on this.

669

Mon Jul 14 21:34:10 2008

abs cavity length measurement experiment

Quote:

Realigning the OSA I also had to move a little bit the mirror that reflects the IFO beam of at the AS port in order to raise the beam height. This had the effect of changing the position of the AS spot on the camera and on the monitors.

Tonight with John, we made sure that the AS beam was still aligned to the PD.

670

Tue Jul 15 09:47:09 2008

PEM

lab temps and particles

All air condtion units were serviced last Friday.
AC filters are trying to control our particle counts but they have no capacity to match bad Pasadena conditions.
IFO room filters at CES were really clean.
Air make up filters inside and outside were dirty.
They showed the construction effect.
Control room and clean assembly units needed all filters replaced.

Note: the PSL-FSS_RCTEMP droped o.1C when enclouser HEPAs were turned back on
The RC temp controller should be better than that!

Attachment 1: temps24d.jpg

672

Tue Jul 15 10:24:57 2008

PMC temp & pzt voltage

The PMC pzt HV was happy with no HEPA temp stability.
Can we thermally insulate the pmc ?

Attachment 1: pmctemp.jpg

674

Tue Jul 15 12:23:22 2008

Alberto, Jenne

Mode Cleaner was unlocked. We checked, and found that MC2's watchdog was tripped. It didn't look like anything bad was going on, so we turned the optic back on, and tried to relock the MC. It looks like the Mode Cleaner is now locked, but the lock bit on the LockMC screen is still red. I don't know what's up.

677

Wed Jul 16 09:27:17 2008

PSL-FSS_RMTEMP alarm is false

ALARM

Morning alarm sound is good for people who does not drink coffee.
Our 40m alarm is on every morning.
Those whom are not here in the morning thinks that this beeping sound is inspirational.
Would someone change this sound into less punishing form, like mockingbird chirp....

The C1PSL_SETTINGS.adl (40mm PSL Settings ) indicating that
C1:PSL-FSS_INOFFSET (Input Offset Adjust ) should be 0.3 +-0.05 V (red warning tag )

Alarm Handler: 40M pointing to yellow grade warning of PSL-FSS_RMTEM
This is a false alarm.

Two years trend of these channels are here:

Attachment 1: frmtemp2y.jpg

679

Wed Jul 16 11:00:15 2008

Masha

improving ADC input for the mach zehnder setup and completely unrelated happenings

Auxiliary locking

For most of last week, the SURFs + Jenne were helping Mike and Ken with "stray light control for
Enhanced LIGO", i.e. cleaning and baking many many baffles which will catch scattered light in the
interferometer.

Otherwise, the two channels of the Mach Zehnder which will be used to measure fibre noise were
balanced, which should reduce the effect of laser amplitude noise in phase noise detection. I have
set up two digital channels to collect time series data from the two photodiodes and took some
preliminary noise measurements. I will be using Matlab to combine the signals as to directly measure
the phase noise, and I wrote some Matlab code to speed up this process: loading the files,
manipulating time series data, and converting into frequency domain. Currently I am building a
filter that will attenuate the signal at frequencies below 1Hz and amplify at higher frequencies in
order to whiten the spectra and reduce ADC noise.

680

Wed Jul 16 11:26:47 2008

Max Jones

This Week

Baffles.

I got a battery for the magnetometer today which is slightly too large (~2 mm) in one dimension. Not sure what I'm going to do.

I'm attempting to calibrate the magnetometer but I'm having a hard time calibrating the axis that I cannot simply put through a coil parallel to the coils length. I have attempted to use the end fields of the solenoid but the measurements from the magnetometer are significantly different from the theoretical calculations.

I would appreciate suggestions. - Max.

683

Wed Jul 16 16:59:07 2008

I think the two beams are aligned again - they both pass the Faraday, they match at the irises and all along the optical path on the AP table. Although the NPRO beam does not show up at the AS port.

685

Wed Jul 16 17:51:58 2008

I'm taking a measurement on the SR785 spectrum analyzer at low frequencies, so I'm going to leave it by the symmetric port table for a while. Please don't move it!

686

Wed Jul 16 22:29:05 2008

Quote:

I'm taking a measurement on the SR785 spectrum analyzer at low frequencies, so I'm going to leave it by the symmetric port table for a while. Please don't move it!

all done thanks.

688

Thu Jul 17 08:30:15 2008

PMC relocked manually

The PMC pzt HV and the servo gain adj. are railing at max this morning

Why is it on the decreasing side of FSS_RTTEMP slope?

Attachment 1: pmc4d.jpg

689

Thu Jul 17 12:15:21 2008

Eric

Swept PMC PZT voltage range

I unlocked the PMC and swept over C1:PSL-PMC_RAMP's full range a couple of times this morning.  The PMC should now be relocked and returned 
to normal.

691

Thu Jul 17 16:39:58 2008

Max Jones

DAQ

Magnetometer Installed

Today I installed the magnetometer near the beam splitter chamber. It is located on the BSC chamber at head height on the inner part of the interferometer (meaning I had to crawl under the arms to install it). I don't think I disturbed anything during installation but I think that's it's probably prudent to tell everyone that I was back there just in case. I plan to run 3 BNC cables (one for each axis) from the magnetometer to the DAQ input either tonight or tomorrow. Suggestions are appreciated. - Max.

692

Thu Jul 17 20:13:34 2008

Yoichi

PMC alignment/mode matching effort

I'm working to improve the mode matching of PMC.
Because I noticed that the beam was hitting the aperture of the EOM for PMC, I moved the EOM a little bit to maximize the transmission.
This did not change the alignment to the reference cavity but changed the alignment of the PMC a lot.
So I adjusted it back.
The alignment of the PMC can be easily optimized but the Hermite 02 mode still remains. This means the mode matching is bad.
Moving the lenses by a small amount (a few mm) did not change the height of 02 mode.
I'm planning to move the lenses by a large amount tomorrow. But it will destroy the alignment to the PMC.
So I installed two irises in the beam path after the lenses to remember the alignment roughly.
Right now the PMC transmission is slightly worse than before because the lens positions are not good.

694

Fri Jul 18 16:57:37 2008

I have calibrated MC_F. The conversion factor is 137.49 MHz/count.

The calibration data taken is attached, along with a calibrated power spectrum.

On the data plot, the x axis is volts from the C1:IOO-MC_FAST_MON channel, with the calibration between FAST_MON and MC_F = -788.18 volts/count.
The linear term of the fit line = -0.085MHz/volt. Error bars are +/- 1 in the last digit of what the spectrum analyzer gave me for frequency (+/- 0.01MHz).

The net conversion factor is then (-788.18)*(-0.085)*(2) = 137.49 MHz/count. The factor of 2 is because the light passes through the AOM twice.

On the power spectrum,
REF0 and REF1 = MC unlocked, HEPAs on, MC Refl gain = 22
REF2 and REF3 = MC locked, HEPAs on, MC Refl gain = 22
REF4 and REF5 = MC locked, HEPAs on, MC Refl gain = 19
REF6 and REF7 = MC locked, HEPAs off, MC Refl gain = 19

Attachment 1: MC_Fcalib.png

Attachment 2: 20080717MC_F-MC_I.pdf

695

Fri Jul 18 17:06:20 2008

Jenne

Computers down for most of the day, but back up now

Computers

[Sharon, Alex, Rob, Alberto, Jenne]

Sharon and I have been having trouble with the C1ASS computer the past couple of days. She has been corresponding with Alex, who has been rebooting the computers for us. At some point this afternoon, as a result of this work, or other stuff (I'm not totally sure which) about half of the computers' status lights on the MEDM screen were red. Alberto and Sharon spoke to Alex, who then fixed all of them except C1ASC. Alberto and I couldn't telnet into C1ASC to follow the restart procedures on the Wiki, so Rob helped us hook up a monitor and keyboard to the computer and restart it the old fashioned way.

It seems like C1ASC has some confusion as to what its IP address is, or some other computer is now using C1ASC's IP address.

As of now, all the computers are back up.

696

Fri Jul 18 17:12:35 2008

Jenne

Checking out the MC Servo Board

IOO

[Jenne, Max]

One of the things that Rana thinks that might be causing my MC_F calibration to be off is that the MC Servo Board's filters don't match those on the schematics. Max and I pulled the MC servo board today to check resistor and capacitor values. Alberto needed the Mode Cleaner, so we put the board back before finishing checking values. We will probably pull the board again next week to finish checking the values.

I haven't checked to ensure that the MC still locks, because Yoichi is doing stuff on the PSL table, but I didn't change anything on the board, and hooked all the cables back where they were, so hopefully it's all okay.

697

Fri Jul 18 19:15:15 2008

Jenne

Checking out the MC Servo Board

IOO

Quote:

[Jenne, Max]

I haven't checked to ensure that the MC still locks, because Yoichi is doing stuff on the PSL table, but I didn't change anything on the board, and hooked all the cables back where they were, so hopefully it's all okay.

I put the PMC back and the MC now locks.

698

Fri Jul 18 19:30:20 2008

I will be working in the basement of Bridge probably starting next week; I moved the NPRO laser and some of the optics from my mach zehnder setup on the SP table to Bridge. Thanks for your help!

699

Fri Jul 18 19:41:09 2008

Yoichi

PMC PZT investigation

I measured the HV coming to the PMC PZT by plugging it off from the PZT and hooking it up to a DVM.
The reading of DVM is pretty much consistent with the reading on EPICS. I got 287V on the DVM when the EPICS says 290V.

Then I used a T to monitor the same voltage while it is connected to the PZT. I attached a plot of the actual voltage measured by the DVM vs the EPICS reading.
It shows a hysteresis.
Also the actual voltage drops by more than a half when the PZT is connected. The output impedance of the HV amp is 64k (according to the schematic). If I believe this number, the impedance of the PZT should also be 64k. The current flowing the PZT is 1.6mA at 200V EPICS reading.
The impedance of the PZT directly measured by the DVM is 1.5M ohm, which is significantly different from the value expected above. I will check the actual output impedance of the HV amp later.
The capacitance of the PZT measured by the DVM is 300nF. I don't know if I can believe the DVM's ability to measure C.

I noticed that when a high voltage is applied, the actual voltage across the PZT shows a decay.
The second plot shows the step response of the actual voltage.
The voltage coming to the PZT was T-ed and reduced by a factor of 30 using a high impedance voltage divider to be recorded by an ADC.
The PMCTRANSPD channel is temporarily used to monitor this signal.
After the voltage applied to the PZT was increased abruptly (to ~230V), the actual voltage starts to exponentially decrease.
When the HV was reduced to ~30V, the actual voltage goes up. This behavior explains the weird exponential motion of the PZT feedback signal when the PMC is locked.
The cause of the actual voltage drop is not understood yet.
From the above measurements, we can almost certainly conclude that the problem of the PMC is in the PZT, not in the HV amp nor the read back.

Attachment 1: Hysteresis.png

Attachment 2: StepResponse.png

701

Fri Jul 18 23:24:24 2008

rob

PMC PZT investigation

Quote:

I'd believe the Fluke's measurement of capacitance. Here's some info from PK about the PZT:

Quote:

But the PMC ones were something like
0.750 in. thick x 0.287 in. thick. 2 microns per 200 V displacement,
resonant frequency greater than 65 kHz. Typical capacitance is around 0.66
uF.

If the PZT capacitance has dropped by a factor of two, that seems like a bad sign. I don't know what to expect for a resistance value of the PZT, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's non-Ohmic. The 64k is the series resistor after the PA85, not the modeled resistance of the PZT itself.

702

Sat Jul 19 19:39:44 2008

rob

PMC PZT investigation

Quote:

The 64k is the series resistor after the PA85, not the modeled resistance of the PZT itself.

Yes. What I meant was that because the measured voltage across the PZT was a half of the open voltage of the HV amp, the DC impedance of the PZT is expected to be similar to the output impedance of the HV amp. Of course, I don't think the DC impedance of a normal PZT should be such low.
I'm puzzled by the discrepancy between this expected DC impedance and the directly measured impedance by the Fluke DVM (1.5M Ohm).
One possibility is that the PZT leaks current only when a high voltage is applied.

704

Mon Jul 21 09:52:05 2008

Sharon