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Entry  Thu Jan 4 12:46:27 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay FiberALS.pdfFiberALS.svg.zip
    Reply  Thu Jan 11 14:22:40 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay 
       Reply  Thu Jan 11 20:51:20 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay IMG_5112.JPG
          Reply  Tue Jan 16 21:50:53 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay 
             Reply  Thu Jan 18 00:35:00 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay IR_ALS_20180118.pdfC2B4C1DD-6528-4067-9C13-6BD248629AD6.MOV
                Reply  Fri Jan 19 11:34:21 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay IR_ALS_20180119.pdf
                   Reply  Fri Jan 19 23:04:11 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay 
                      Reply  Wed Jan 24 00:33:31 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay IMG_6866.JPG
                         Reply  Wed Jan 24 10:45:14 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay 
                         Reply  Thu Jan 25 23:59:14 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay 
                            Reply  Fri Jan 26 20:03:09 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay 
                               Reply  Wed Jan 31 15:45:22 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay IMG_6875.JPG
                                  Reply  Wed Jan 31 16:29:42 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Modulation depths PMCmodDepth.pdfXPDH.pdf
                                  Reply  Wed Jan 31 16:33:53 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, ALS electronics at LSC rack 
                                     Reply  Wed Jan 31 22:32:11 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, ALS signal chain + power budget FiberALS_PowerBudget.pdfpreampProposed.pdf
                                        Reply  Thu Feb 1 01:24:56 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D0902745 revamp underway PSLinterlock.png
                                           Reply  Fri Feb 2 00:26:34 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D0902745 revamp underway 
                                              Reply  Fri Feb 2 13:16:55 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, ALS signals whitening switching ALS_whitening_switching.pdfALS_whitening_switching_works.pdf
                                                 Reply  Mon Feb 5 14:11:01 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Huge harmonics in ALS channels ALSpowerlineHarmonics.pdf2A1B3AC4-4059-416A-AD88-8AB0431D7A55.jpeg
                                                    Reply  Mon Feb 5 22:57:28 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Huge harmonics in ALS channels 
                                                       Reply  Tue Feb 6 11:13:26 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Possible source of ground loop identified A68AF89C-E8A9-416D-BBD2-A1AD0A51E0B5.jpeg
                                                          Reply  Tue Feb 6 22:55:51 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Possible source of ground loop identified 
                                                       Reply  Thu Feb 8 00:33:20 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D990694 characterization / THD measurement plan D990694THD_trial.pdf
                                                          Reply  Thu Feb 8 01:27:16 2018, Koji, Update, ALS, D990694 characterization / THD measurement plan 
                                                          Reply  Fri Feb 9 13:37:44 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, THD measurement trial THD_trial.pdf
                                                       Reply  Thu Feb 8 12:00:09 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D990694 is NOT differential receiving 
                                                          Reply  Thu Feb 8 13:13:14 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D990694 pulled out IMG_5131.JPGIMG_5133.JPGD990694-B_cuttingPlan.pdf
                                                             Reply  Thu Feb 8 18:10:36 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D990694 pulled out 
                                              Reply  Wed Feb 7 15:51:15 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D0902745 revamp complete 6613CD37-5014-44AE-B1FE-6F6A8137DF62.jpeg
                                                 Reply  Fri Feb 16 01:34:40 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D0902745 in-situ testing BeatMouthX_20180216.pdfIMG_5134.JPG
                                                    Reply  Tue Feb 20 23:08:27 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D0902745 in-situ testing BeatMouthX_20180220_diffOut.pdf
                                                       Reply  Thu Feb 22 00:09:11 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, D0902745 in-situ testing daughterBoard_TF.pdfdaughterBoard_noise.pdfIMG_6906.JPG
                                                          Reply  Sun Feb 25 00:03:12 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Daughter board prototyping schematic.pdfdaughterBoard_TF.pdfdaughterBoard_noise.pdfTEK00000.PNGdaughterBoard_noise.pdf
                                                             Reply  Mon Feb 26 20:55:56 2018, rana, Update, ALS, Daughter board prototyping 
                                                                Reply  Tue Feb 27 21:10:45 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Daughter board testing IMG_6912.JPGIMG_6913.JPGIMG_6914.JPG
                                                                   Reply  Wed Feb 28 19:13:25 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, ADC test for differential receiving in c1lsc c1lsc_ADCtest.png
                                                                   Reply  Fri Mar 2 01:45:06 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, new look ALS electronics IMG_6916.JPG
                                                                      Reply  Mon Mar 5 17:27:34 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, new look ALS electronics - characterization BeatMouthX_20180305_diffOut.pdf
                                                                         Reply  Thu Mar 8 00:40:25 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, new look ALS electronics - characterization BeatMouthX_20180305_diffOut.pdf
                                                                            Reply  Thu Mar 8 19:38:37 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, digital unwhitening of daughter board TFfit.pdf
                                                                               Reply  Thu Mar 8 23:50:27 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, First look at new ALS electronics BeatMouth_OOL.pdf
                                                                                  Reply  Fri Mar 9 01:07:01 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, First look at new ALS electronics ALS_vs_POXnoise.pdf
                                                                                     Reply  Mon Mar 12 22:08:31 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Noisy POX NoisyPOX_20180312.pdf
                                                                                        Reply  Mon Mar 12 23:57:31 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Noisy POX NoisyPOXandPOY_20180312.pdfnoisyPOX_Jan2018.pdf
                                                                                           Reply  Mon Mar 19 15:02:29 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Noisy MC sensing 
                                        Reply  Thu Feb 1 15:31:12 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, ALS signal chain + power budget 
                                        Reply  Wed Feb 7 10:16:26 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, ALS signal chain + power budget 
                      Reply  Thu Jan 25 13:18:41 2018, gautam, Update, ALS, Fiber ALS assay preampProposed.pdf
Message ID: 13599     Entry time: Fri Feb 2 00:26:34 2018     In reply to: 13596     Reply to this: 13600     13616
Author: gautam 
Type: Update 
Category: ALS 
Subject: D0902745 revamp underway 

I saw some interesting behaviour of the Audio IF amplifier stage on the demod board today, by accident. I was testing the board for I/Q orthogonality and gain balance, when I noticed a large gain imbalance between the I and Q channels for both Board #3 and #4, which are the ones we use for the IR ALS demodulation. This puzzled me for some time, but then I realized that I had only reduced the gain of this stage from x100 to x10 for the I channel, and not for the Q channel! The surprising thing though was that the output waveform still looked like a clean sinusoid on the o'scope, and there was no evidence of the voltage clipping that is characteristic of an op-amp being driven beyond its voltage rails. The conversion factor with a preamp gain on x10 was measured today to be 2V IF / 1V RF. But this means that for a preamp stage gain of x100, we expect 20V IF / 1V RF, which is well in the saturation regime of the AD829, since the Vcc is only +/-15V. I'm guessing the diodes D2 and D3 are for overvoltage protection, but given that the pre-amp gain is x100, the input signal at the inverting input of the AD829 is only 0.2V at DC, which isn't above the forward bias voltage for the switching diode BAV99. Perhaps there is some interaction between the pre-amp and the FET demodulator that I dont understand, or I am missing something about the differential to single-ended topology that would explain this behaviour. 

I found it puzzling why the large preamp stage gain didn't hurt us with the green beat - even though the green optical beat signal was smaller than the current IR beat, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested that it would still have saturated the ADC with a x100 gain on the preamp. Perhaps this observation is part of the story, and there is also the unpredictable behaviour of the D990694 board for an input signal with large DC levels...

I did the following tests on this board today:

  • Check +/-15V supplies, power reg board.
  • Check DC offset on I and Q front panel output with LO driven at +10dBm, RF input terminated. Found it to be 0.
  • Checked calibration of back-panel DSUB connector monitors for LO and RF powers. Data to be uploaded, looked quite linear.
  • Checked conversion gain from RF input to IF output for two sets of LO/RF powers.
  • Measured conversion gain as a function of the IF frequency (i.e. frequency offset between LO and RF inputs, out to ~700kHz, 8 datapoints)
  • Checked orthogonality and gain balance of the I and Q outputs.
  • Measured the noise of the I and Q outputs in the audio frequency range using the SR785.

I didn't really measure the transfer function of the preamp stage after the modification because there wasn't a convenient test point and I couldn't find the high impedance FET probe for the Agilent - I wonder if somebody in WB has it? Anyways, all the tests suggested the board is operating as expected, and I now have calibrations for the back panel DSUB for LO/RF power levels, and also the conversion gain from RF to IF. I will put together a python notebook with all my measurements and upload it to the DCC page for this part. I need to double check expected noise levels from LISO to match up to the measurement.

I will now proceed to the next piece (#3?) of this puzzle, which is to understand how the D990694 which receives the signals from this unit reacts to the expected DC voltage level of ~4Vpp.

After discussion with Koji, I have also decided to look into putting together a daughter board for an alternative Audio IF preamp stage. The motivation is that for the ALS application, we expect a high DC signal level all the time (because the loop does not suppress the beat note amplitude). So we would like for the preamp stage to have the usual shape of some zero around 4Hz, a pole around 40Hz, and then the LowPass profile of the existing preamp stage (to cut out the 2f frequency product, but also to minimize the possibility of the fast AD829 going into some unpredictable regime where it oscillates). So, the desired features are:

  • Whitening (z,p) at (4Hz,40Hz) or (15Hz,150Hz) so that we have frequency dependent gain that can handle the large DC signal level expected. Need to measure noise of the actual IR beat signal to determine what the appropriate whitening shape is.
  • Low-pass above a few 100kHz to cut out 2f modulation product
  • Low-passing at input of AD829 (or just use OP27?)
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