[Stephen Koji]

We decided to paint the silicon test mass with Aquadag to increase the emissivity of the test mass.

Stephen brought the Aquadag kit from Downs (ref. C2100169) (Attachment 1)

It's a black emulsion with viscosity like peanut butter. It is messy and smells like squid (Ammonium I think) (Attachment 2)

We first tried a scoop of Aquadag + 10 scoops of water. But this was too thin and was repelled easily by a Si wafer.
So we tried a thicker solution: a scoop of Aquadag + 4 scoops of water. (Attachment 3)

The thicker solution nicely stayed on the Si wafer (Attachment 4)

We want to leave the central area of the barrel unpainted so that we can put the suspension wire there without producing carbon powder. (Attachment 5)
1.5" from the edge were going to be painted. The central1" were masked.

The picture shows how the Si test mass was painted. The test mass was on a V-shaped part brought from the OMC lab. The faces were also painted leaving the mirror, while the place for RTD, and the magnet were not painted. (Attachment 6)

It looked messy while the painting was going, but once it started to dry, the coating looks smooth. It's not completely black, but graphite gray. (Attachment 7)

After the test mass got dry, another layer was added. (Attachment 8)

Then made it completely dry. Now the mask was removed. Nice! (Attachments 9/10)