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ID Date Author Type Category Subject
11879   Mon Dec 14 16:27:11 2015 gautamUpdateGreen LockingY-end AUX PDH noise breakdown

Summary:

I've attached the results from my measurements of the noise characteristics of the Y-end auxiliary PDH system.

Details:

The following spectra were measured, in the range DC-1MHz:

1. Analyzer noise floor (measured with input terminated)
2. Green REFL PD dark noise (measured with the Y-end green shutter closed)
3. Mixer noise (measured with input to mixer terminated - measured with an SR560 with a gain of 100)
4. Servo noise (measured with input to servo terminated)
5. In loop error signal (measured with green locked to Y-arm, LSC off - using monitor point on PDH box)
6. In loop control signal (measured with green locked to Y-arm, LSC off - using monitor point on PDH box)

In order to have good spectral resolution, the frequency range was divided into 5 subsections: DC-200Hz, 200Hz-3.4kHz, 3.4kHz-16.2kHz, 10kHz-100kHz, 100kHz-1MHz. The first three are measured using the SR785, while the last two ranges are measured with the Agilent network analyzer. The spectrum of the mixer output with its input terminated was quite close to the analyzer noise floor - hence, this was measured with an S560 preamplifier set to a gain of 100, and subsequently dividing the ASD by 100. To convert the Y-axis from V/rtHz to Hz/rtHz, I used two conversion factors: for the analyzer noise floor, PD dark noise, mixer noise and in-loop error signal, I made an Optickle simulation of a simple FP cavity (all parameters taken from the wiki optics page, except that I put in Yutaro's measured values for the arm loss and a modulation depth of 0.21 which I estimated as detailed here), and played around with the demodulation phase until I got an error signal that had the same qualitative shape as what I observed on an oscilloscope with the arms freely swinging (feedback to the laser PZT disabled). The number I finally used is 45.648 kHz/V (the main horns were 800mV peak-to-peak on an oscilloscope trace, results of the Optickle FP cavity simulation shown in Attachment #2 used to calibrate the X-axis). For the servo noise spectrum and in-loop control signal, I used the value of 2.43 MHz/V as determined here

I'm not sure what to make of the strong peaks in the mixer noise spectrum between ~60Hz and 10kHz - some of the more prominent peaks are 60Hz harmonics, but there are several peaks in between as well (these have been confusing me for some time now, they were present even when I made the measurement in this frequency range using the Agilent network analyzer. My plan is to repeat these measurements for the Xend now.

Attachment 1: YAUX_NB_Dec2015.pdf
Attachment 2: PDH_errSig_Calib.pdf
11883   Tue Dec 15 11:22:53 2015 gautamUpdateCDSc1scx and c1asx crashed

I noticed what I thought was excessive movement of the beam spot on ITMX and ETMX on the control room monitors, and when I checked the CDS FE status overview MEDM screen, I saw that c1scx and c1asx had crashed. I ssh-ed into c1iscex and restarted both models, and then restarted fb as well. However, the DAQ-DCO_C1SCX_STATUS indicator remains red even after restarting fb (see attached screenshot). I am not sure how to fix this so I am leaving it as is for now, and the X arm looks to have settled down.

Attachment 1: CDS_FE_STATUS_OVERVIEW_15DEC2015.png
11886   Wed Dec 16 10:56:22 2015 gautamUpdateCDShard reboot of FB

[ericq,gautam]

Forgot to submit this yesterday...

While we were trying to get the X-arm locked to IR using MC2, frame-builder mysteriously crashed, necessitating us having to go down to the computer and perform a hard reboot (after having closed the PSL shutter and turning all the watchdogs to "shutdown"). All the models restarted by themselves, and everything seems back to normal now..

11887   Wed Dec 16 18:34:40 2015 gautamUpdateGreen LockingGreen beat channels temporarily set up as IR beat channels

Since there are a few hours to go before the locking efforts tonight, I've temporarily borrowed the channels used to read out the green beat frequency, and have hooked them up to the broadband IR PDs in the FOL box on the PSL table. I've used the network analyzer in the control room to roughly position the two beatnotes. I've also turned the green beat PDs back on (since the PSL shutter has to be open for the IR beat, and there is some green light falling on these PDs, but I've terminated the outputs).

So this needs to be switched back before locking efforts tonight...

11890   Thu Dec 17 14:02:05 2015 gautamUpdateCDSIPC channels for beat frequency control set up

I've set up two IPC channels that take the output from the digital frequency counters and send them to the end front-ends (via the RFM model). A summary of the steps I followed:

1. Set up two Dolphin channels in C1ALS to send the output of the frequency counter blocks to C1RFM (I initially used RFM blocks for these, but eric suggested using Dolphin IPC for the ALS->RFM branch, as they're faster.. Eric's removed the redundant channel names)
2. Set up two RFM channels in C1RFM to send the out put of the frequency counter blocks to C1SCX/Y (along with CDS monitor points to monitor the error rate and a filter module between the ALS->RFM and RFM->SCX/Y IPC blocks - I just followed what seemed to be the convention in the RFM model).
3. Set up the receiving channels in C1SCX and C1SCY
4. Re-compiled and re-started the models in the order C1ALS, C1RFM, C1SCX and C1SCY.

I've set things up such that we can select either the "PZT IN" or the frequency counter as the input to the slow servo, via means of a EPICS variable called "FC_SWITCH" (so C1:ALS-X_FC_SWITCH or C1:ALS-Y_FC_SWITCH). If this is 0, we use the default "PZT IN" signal, while setting it to 1 will change the input to the slow servo to be the frequency readout from the digital frequency counter. I've not updated the MEDM screens to reflect the two new paths yet, but will do so soon. It also remains to install appropriate filters for the servo path that takes the frequency readout as the input.

Tangentially related to this work: I've modified the FC library block so that it outputs frequency in MHz as opposed to Hz, just for convenience..

11891   Thu Dec 17 16:44:03 2015 gautamUpdateCDSALS Slow control MEDM screen updated
 Quote: I've not updated the MEDM screens to reflect the two new paths yet, but will do so soon. It also remains to install appropriate filters for the servo path that takes the frequency readout as the input.

A few more related changes:

1. The couplers that used to sit on the green beat PDs on the PSL table have now been shifted to the IR broadband PDs in the FOL box so that I can get the IR beat frequency over to the frequency counters. The FOL box itself, along with the fibers that bring IR light to the PSL table, have been relocated to the corner of the PSL table where the green beat PDs sit because of cable length constraints.
2. I've updated the ALS slow control MEDM screen to allow for slow control of the beat frequency. The servo shape for now is essentially just an integrator with a zero at 1 Hz. The idea is to set an offset in the new filter module, which is the desired beat frequency, and let the integrator maintain this beat frequency. One thing I've not taken care of yet is automatically turning this loop off when the IMC loses lock. Screenshot of the modified MEDM screen is attached.
3. I checked the performance by using the temperature sliders to introduce an offset. The integrator is able to bring the beat frequency back to the setpoint in a few seconds, provided the step I introduced was not two big (~20 counts, but this is a pretty large shift in beat frequency, nearly 20MHz).

To do:

1. Figure out how to deal with the IMC losing lock. I guess this is important if we want to use the IR beatnote as a diagnostic for the state of the X AUX laser.
2. Optimize the servo gains a little - I still see some ringing when I introduce an offset, this could be avoided...
Attachment 1: ALS_SLOW_17DEC2015.png
11896   Tue Dec 22 16:23:33 2015 gautamUpdateIOOInput alignment to PMC tweaked

When I came in this afternoon, I saw that the PZT voltage to the PMC had railed. Following the usual procedure of turning the servo gain to zero and adjusting the DC offset, I got the PMC to relock, but the PMCR level was high and the alignment looked poor on the control room monitor. So I tweaked the input alignment on the PSL till I felt it was more reasonable. The view on the control room monitor now looks more like the usual state, and the "REFL (V)" field on the PMC MEDM screen now reads 0.02-0.03 which is the range I remember it being in nominally.

11898   Tue Dec 22 16:44:03 2015 gautamUpdateGeneralFS725 Rubidium reference - REPAIRED
 Quote: However, the one that was recovered from the ATF lab is no longer locking to the Rubidium reference frequency, although it was locked at the time we disconnected it from the ATF lab. I emailed the support staff at SRS, who seem to think that either the internal oscillator has drifted too far, or the Rb lamp is dead. Either ways, it needs to be repaired. They suggested that I run a check by issuing some serial commands to the unit to determine which of these is actually the problem, but I've been having some trouble setting up the serial link - I will try this again tomorrow.

The Rubidium standard we had sent in for repair and recalibration has come back. I checked the following:

• Powered the unit on - it was locked to the internal rubidium reference within a few minutes as prescribed in the manual.
• After it had locked to the internal reference, I checked that it was able to lock to an external 1pps reference from our GPS timing unit- this too was achieved within a few minutes as prescribed in the manual

However, I am still having trouble setting up a serial communications link with the FS725 with a USB-serial adaptor - I've tried with a Raspberry Pi and my Mac (using screen to try and connect), and also using one of the old Windows laptops lying around on which I was able to install the native software supplied by SRS (still using the USB-serial adaptor to establish connection though). Could it be that the unit is incompatible with the USB-serial adaptor? I had specifically indicated in the repair request that this was also a problem. In any case, this doesn't seem to be crucial, though it would have been nice for diagnostics purposes in the future...

I've stored the repaired FS725 inside the electronics cabinet (marked "Eletronics Modules") for now (the other unit was returned to Antonio in W. Bridge some weeks ago).

Attachment 1: FS725_repaired.jpg
11906   Mon Jan 4 16:09:54 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingY end laser (Lightwave) PZT calibration

Summary:

I redid this measurement and have now determined the actuator gain to be 4.61 +/- 0.10 MHz/V. This is now pretty consistent with the expected value of ~5MHz/V as reported here.

Details:

I made the following changes to the old methodology:

1. Instead of integrating around the excitation frequency, I am now just taking the ratio of peak heights (phase tracker output / error signal monitor) to determine the actuator gain.
2. I had wrongly assumed that the phase tracker output was calibrated to green Hz and not IR Hz, so I was dividing by two where this was not necessary. I think this explains why my previous measurement yielded an answer approximately half the expected value.

I also took spectra of the phase tracker output and error signal to make sure I was choosing my excitation frequencies in regions where there were no peaks already present (Attachment #1).

The scatter of measured actuator gains at various excitation frequencies is shown in Attachment #2.

Attachment 1: choosingExcFreqs.pdf
Attachment 2: laserPZTcalib.pdf
11907   Mon Jan 4 16:45:11 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingY-end AUX PDH noise breakdown

Summary:

I've re-measured the noise breakdown for the Y-end AUX PDH system. Spectra are attached. I've also measured the OLTF of the PDH loop, from which the UGF appears to be ~8.5kHz.

Discussion:

As Eric and Koji pointed out, the spectra uploaded here were clearly wrong as there were breaks in the spectra between decades of frequency. I redid the measurements, this time being extra careful about impedance mismatch effects. All measurements were made from the monitor points on the PDH box, which according to the schematic found here, have an output impedance of 49.9 ohms. So for all measurements made using the SR785 which has an input impedance of 1Mohm, or those which had an SR560 in the measurement chain (also high input impedance), I terminated the input with a 50ohm terminator so as to be able to directly match up spectra measured using the two different analyzers. I'm also using my more recent measurement of the actuator gain of the AUX laser to convert the control signal from V/rtHz to Hz/rtHz in the plotted spectra.

As a further check, I locked the IR to the Y-arm by actuating on MC2, and took the spectrum of the Y-arm mirror motion using the C1CAL model. We expect this to match up well with the in-loop control signal at low frequencies. However, though the shapes seem consistent in Attachment #2 (light orange and brown curves), I seem to be off by a factor of 5- not sure why. In converting the Y-arm mirror motion spectrum from m/rtHz to Hz/rtHz, I multiplied the measured spectrum by $\frac{3.907*10^6}{0.5*532*10^{-9}}$, which I think is the correct conversion factor (FSR/(0.5*wavelength))?

Attachment 1: ErrSigBreakdown.pdf
Attachment 2: controlSigBreakdown.pdf
Attachment 3: YEnd_PDH_OLTF.pdf
11930   Wed Jan 13 18:36:00 2016 gautamUpdateLSCrestoration of green beat electronics

In preparation for tonight's work, I did the following:

On the PSL table:

• Powered the RF amplifiers for the green beat signal on
• Reconnected the outputs of the Green beat PDs to the RF amplifiers
• Restored wiring in the fiber box such that both IR beats go to the frequency counter.

At the IOO Rack area:

• Restored wiring to the frequency counter module such that the IR beats from both arms go to the respective channels
• Partially cleaned up the setup used for measuring AUX laser frequency noise - moved the SR785 to the X end along with one SR560 so that we can measure the end PDH OLTF
• Brought the HP network analyzer back to the control room so that we can view the green beatnotes.

At the X-end:

• Turned the function generator used for PDH locking back on
• Checked that the AUX laser diode current is 1.90 A, and the crystal temperature is ~47.5 degrees, both of which I think are "good" values from our AUX laser frequency noise measurements
• Did some minor manual alignment of the PZT mirrors

At the Y-end:

• Restored the BNC connection from the PDH box to the laser's "FAST" control input. The long BNC cable used for the PLL is still running along the Y-arm, I will clean this up later.

Having done all this, I checked the green transmission levels for both arms (PSL green shutter closed, after running ASS to maximize IR transmission). GTRY is close to what I remember (~0.40) while the best I could get GTRX to is ~0.12 (I seem to remember it being almost double this value - maybe the alignment onto the beat PD has to be improved?). Also, the amplitudes of the beatnotes on the network analyzer are ~-50dBm, and I seem to remember it being more like -25dBm, so maybe the alignment on the PD is the issue? I will investigate further in the evening. It remains to measure the OLTF of the X-end PDH as well.

11936   Tue Jan 19 17:27:58 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingAUX X power investigations

Last week, Eric and I noticed that the green transmission levels at the PSL table seem much lower now than they did a month or two ago. To investigate this, I attempted to reproduce a power budget for the X endtable setup - see the attached figure (IR powers measured with calorimeter, green powers measured with Ophir power meter). A summary of my observations:

• The measurements were all made at an AUX-X laser diode current of 1.90A, and laser crystal temperature of 47.41 degrees. The current was chosen on the basis of the AUX-X frequency noise investigations. The temperature was chosen as this is the middle of three end-laser temperatures at wich a beat-note can be found now. Why should this temperature have changed by almost 5 degrees from the value reported here? I checked on the PSL laser controller that the PSL temperature is 33.43 degrees. Turning up the diode current to 2A does not change the situation significantly. Also, on the Innolight datasheet, the tuning geometry graphs' X-axes only runs to 45 degrees. Not sure of what to make of this. I tried looking at the trend of the offset to the slow temperature servo to see if there has been some sort of long-term drift, but was unable to do so...
• The IR power from the laser seems to have halved, compared to the value in Feb 2014. Is this normal deterioration over two years? Changing the laser diode current to 2A and the laser crystal temperature to ~42 degrees (the conditions under which the Feb 2014 measurements were taken) do not alter these numbers radically.
• The green power seems to have become 1/4 its value in Feb 2014, which seems to be consistent with the fact that the IR power has halved.

It is worth noting that two years ago, the IR power from the AUX-Y laser was ~280 mW, so we should still be getting "enough" green power for ALS?

Attachment 1: X_END_POWER_BUDGET.JPG
11937   Tue Jan 19 17:54:39 2016 gautamUpdateLSCALSX Noise still anomalously high

While carrying out my end-table power investigations, I decided to take a quick look at the out-of-loop ALSX noise - see the attached plot. The feature at ~1kHz seems less prominent (factor of 2?) now, though its still present, and the overall noise above a few tens of Hz is still much higher than the reference. The green transmission was maximized to ~0.19 before this spectrum was taken.

EDIT 1130pm:

We managed to access the trends for the green reflected and transmitted powers from a couple of months back when things were in their nominal state - see Attachment #2 for the situation then. For the X arm, the green reflected power has gone down from ~1300 counts (November 2015) to ~600 counts (january 2016) when locked to the arm and alignment is optimized. The corresponding numbers for the green transmitted powers (PSL + End Laser) are 0.47 (November 2015) and ~0.18 (January 2016). This seems to be a pretty dramatic change over just two months. For the Y-arm, the numbers are: ~3500 counts (Green REFL, Nov 2015), ~3500 counts (Green REFL, Jan 2016) ~1.3 (Green Trans, Nov 2015), ~1 (Green Trans, Jan 2016). So it definitely looks like something has changed dramatically with the X-end setup, while the Y-end seems consistent with what we had a couple of months ago...

Attachment 1: 2016_01_19_ALS_OutOfLoop.pdf
Attachment 2: Green_Locking_Trends.png
11944   Fri Jan 22 11:33:20 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingAUX-X AM/PM investigations

I was trying to characterize the AM/PM response of the X end laser. I tried to measure the AM response first, as follows:

• I used the Thorlabs PDA 55, whose datasheet says it has 10MHz bandwidth - I chose it because it has a larger active area than the PDA 255, but has sufficient bandwidth for this measurement.
• My earlier measurement suggested the IR power coming out of the laser is ~300mW. As per the datasheet of the PDA 55, I expect its output to be (1.5 x 10^4 V/A) * (~0.25 A/W) ~ 4000 V/W => I expect the PD output (driving the 50ohm input of the Agilent NA) to saturate at ~1.3mW. So I decided to use a (non-absorptive) ND 3.0 filter in front of the PD (i.e. incident power on the PD ~0.3 mW).
• I measured the AM response (inputA/inputR) by using the RF output from the Agilent analyzer (divided using a mini-circuits splitter half to input R and half to the laser PZT), and the PD output to input A. I set the power of the RF output on the analyzer to 0 dBm.
• Attachment #1 shows the measured AM response. It differs qualitatively in shape from the earlier measurements reported in this elog and on the wiki below the 100kHz region.
• I also took a measurement of the RIN with no drive to the laser PZT (terminated with a 50ohm terminator) - see Attachment #2. Qualitatively, this looks like the "free-running" RIN curve on the Innolight datasheet (see Attachment #3, the peak seems slightly shifted to the left though), even though the Noise Eater switch on the laser controller front panel is set to "ON". I neglected taking a spectrum with it OFF, I will update this elog once I do (actually I guess I have to take both spectra again as the laser diode and crystal temperatures have since been changed - this data was taken at T_diode = 28.5deg, I_diode = 1.90A, and T_crystal = 47.5 deg). But does this point to something being broken?
• I was unable to lock the PLL yesterday to measure the PM response, I will try again today.
Attachment 1: AUX_X_AM.pdf
Attachment 2: AUX_X_RIN.pdf
Attachment 3: NE_Mephisto.png
11946   Fri Jan 22 17:22:06 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingAUX-X AM/PM investigations

There were a number of directories in /users/OLD/mott/PZT/2NPRO, I've used the data in Innolight_AM_New. Also, I am unsure as to what their "calibration" factor is to convert the measured data into RIN, so I've just used a value of 0.8, with which I got the plot to match up as close as possible to the plot in this elog. I also redid the measurement today, given that the laser parameters have changed. The main difference was that I used an excitation amplitude of +15dBm, and an "IF Bandwidth" of 30Hz in the parameter files for making these measurements, which I chose to match the parameters Mott used. There does seem to be a shift in some of the features, but the <100kHz area seems similar to the old measurement now.

Having put the PD back in, I also took measurements of the RIN with the input to the laser PZT terminated. There is no difference with the Noise Eater On or OFF!

Quote:
 Quote: Attachment #1 shows the measured AM response. It differs qualitatively in shape from the earlier measurements reported in this elog and on the wiki below the 100kHz region.

It looks like some of the features may have shifted in frequency. The previous measurement results can be found in /users/OLD/mott/PZT/2NPRO, can you plot the two AM measurements together?

Attachment 1: AM_response.pdf
Attachment 2: NE_investigations.pdf
11951   Tue Jan 26 17:50:22 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLightwave frequency noise measurement

I attempted to measure the frequency noise of the extra Lightwave NPRO we have that is currently sitting on the PSL table. I did the following:

1. Turn the Lightwave NPRO back on.
2. Disable MC autolocker and close the PSL shutter.
3. Checked the alignment of the pick off from the PSL beam and the beam from the Lightwave NPRO onto the PDA10CF. These seemed okay, and I didn't really have to tweak any of the steering optics. I was getting a DC signal level of ~7V (the PD should drive a 1Mohm load up to 10V so it wasn't saturated).
4. Swept the crystal temperature on the Lightwave using the dial on the front panel of the controller. I found beatnotes at 48.1831 degrees and 45.3002 degrees. However, the amplitude of the beatnote was pretty small (approx. -40dBm on the Agilent NA). I tried playing around with the beam alignment and laser power on the Lightwave NPRO to see if I could increase the beatnote amplitude, but was unsuccessful - turning up the laser power (from the nominal level of 55mW as per the front panel display) caused the PD to saturate at 10V, while as far as I could tell, the alignment of the two beams onto the PD is reasonably good. This seems inconsistent with the numbers Koji has reported in this elog, where he was able to get a beatnote of ~1Vpp for a DC of 2.5 V.
5. I tried locking the PLL (in roughly the same configuration as reported here) with this small amplitude beatnote but was unsuccessful.

I've turned the Lightwave NPRO back to standby for now, in anticipation of further trials later today. I've also restored the IMC.

11953   Wed Jan 27 18:19:45 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLightwave frequency noise measurement

After adjusting the alignment of the two beams onto the PD, I managed to recover a stronger beatnote of ~ -10dBm. I managed to take some measurements with the PLL locked, and will put up a more detailed post later in the evening. I turned the IMC autolocker off, turned the 11MHz Marconi output off, and closed the PSL shutter for the duration of my work, but have reverted these to their nominal state now. The are a few extra cables running from the PSL table to the area near the IOO rack where I was doing the measurements from, I've left these as is for now in case I need to take some more data later in the evening...

11955   Wed Jan 27 23:14:25 2016 gautamUpdatePEMETMX floor vs table noise
 Quote: I didn't really appreciate this measurement until just now. IF you can save the DTT .xml file with all the traces in it (i.e. NOT just the plots), we should save this data for comparison plotting later. Perhaps Gautam can post the gzipped xml file for you into the log. The accelerometers don't read any real noise below ~3 Hz, so we can't judge the difference down low, but this seems like a good measurement in the 5 - 100 Hz band.

Unfortunately I had closed all the DTT windows that Steve had used for the earlier plots. So I took the spectra again - there may be minor differences given that this measurement was taken at ~11pm at night. Anyways, plots and the xml data file are attached.

Attachment 1: X_end_ACC_Data.png
Attachment 2: X_End_ACC_Data.xml.tar.gz
11956   Thu Jan 28 00:29:30 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLightwave frequency noise measurement

Summary of the work done today:

Alignment and other work on PSL table

As mentioned in a previous elog, the beatnote amplitude I obtained was tiny - so I checked the alignment of the two beams onto the PD. I did this as follows:

• Checked the alignment of the two beams on the recombination BS. Moved the steering mirror for the PSL beam until the two were aligned, as verified by eye using an IR card
• Turn the steering mirror just before the fast focusing lens and thorlabs PD (kept the fork fixed, just loosened the screw on the post to do this) such that the far-field alignment of the two beams could be checked. I used the BS to tweak this alignment as necessary
• Iterate the previous two steps till I was happy with the alignment
• Return steering mirror before the PD to its original position, tweak alignment until DC level on the PD was maximized (as verified using an oscilloscope)
• Adjust the HWP just after the lightwave laser such that the power arriving at the PD from the PSL beam and the lightwave beam were approximately equal - verified by blocking each beam and checking change in the DC level

After doing all of this, I found a beatnote at ~-10dBm at a temperature of 45.3002 degrees on the Lightwave. The DC level was ~8V (~4V contribution from each beam).

PLL and frequency nosie measurements:

Pretty much the same procedure as that described in this elog was followed for setting up the PLL and taking the measurements, except that this time, I used the two SR560s in a better way to measure the open loop TF of the PLL. This measurement suggested a UGF of ~ 10kHz, which seems reasonable to me. I turned the 11MHz marconi off because some extra peaks were showing up in the beat signal spectrum. I judged that the beatnote was not large enough to require the use of an attenuator between the PD and the mixer. I was able to lock the PLL easily enough, and I've attached spectra of the control signal (both uncalibrated and calibrated). To calibrate the spectrum, I did a quick check to determine the actuator gain of the spare Lightwave laser, by sweeping the fast PZT with a low frequency (0.5Hz) 1Vpp sine wave, and looking at the peak in the beat signal spectrum move on the network analyzer. This admittedly rough calibration suggests that the coefficient is ~5MHz/V, consistent with the other Lightwave. Eric suggested a more accurate way to do this would be to match up spectra taken using this method and by locking the PLL by actuating on the FM input of the Marconi - I didn't try this, but given the relatively large low-frequency drifts of the beatnote that I was seeing, and that the control signal was regularly hitting ~2V (i.e shifting the frequency by ~10MHz), I don't think this is viable with a low MHz/V coefficient on the Marconi, which we found is desirable as described here

Bottom line:

The spare Lightwave frequency noise seems comparable to the other two measurements (see attachment #2). If anything, it is a factor of a few worse, though this could be due to an error in the calibration? I'm also not sure why the shapes of the spectra from today's measurement differ qualitatively from those in elog 11929 above ~7kHz.

Some random notes:

• Do we want to do an AM/PM characterization of the spare Lightwave laser as well? It might be easier to do the PM measurement while we have this measurement setup working
• Yesterday, I noticed some peaks in the spectrum of the PD output while only the PSL beam was incident on it, at ~35MHz and ~70 MHz. They were pretty small (~-50dBm), but still clearly discernible over the analyzer noise floor. It is unclear to me what the source of these peaks are.
Attachment 1: PLL_OLG.pdf
Attachment 2: Freq_noise_comparison.pdf
11958   Thu Jan 28 19:10:16 2016 gautamUpdateLSCStatus of the green PDH circuits

 Quote: We will update the X circuit DCC page with an accurate schematic and photo.

I've uploaded reasonably high-resolution photographs of the uPDH box for the X-end and Y-end on their respective wiki pages. I've uploaded two photos for each box, one of the circuit board (I checked that these photos are clear enough that we can zoom in and read off component values if necessary), and one of the box with the peripherals not integrated into the circuit board (i.e. the minicircuits mixer ZAD-8+ and the little Pomona box that is an LP filter for the output from the mixer). Since I pulled the boxes out, I thought it might not be a bad idea to measure the TFs of these Pomona boxes and make sure nothing weird is going on, I'll put up some plots later.

Rana and I discussed some things to look at earlier today:

• Check the voltages at test-points 1,7 and 9, and make sure they are as expected
• Change the gain of the pre-amp from x2 to x4 - as Eric mentioned in the previous elog, these had already been swapped out. Right now a 600 ohm and 200 ohm resistor pair are being used, so the preamp gain is x4, which should be okay as per the datasheet of the AD8336 VGA amplifier (although the "recommended" resistor pairing is 301 ohm and 100 ohm, but I don't think this is critical?
• Track down the reason for the difference in Gain settings at the X and Y ends - typically, the X-end PDH box "Gain" knob is set to 10, while that for the Y-end is set to ~4. The fact that the PZT actuator gain for the Y-end is ~5 times larger than for the X-end doesn't seem to account for all of this. As per the attached plot, the difference in gain between the ends is ~35 dB, which is a factor of 50!

I also did a quick check of the behaviour of the Servo Gain potentiometer by checking the resistance at various positions of the knob - we had suspected that the potentiometer may be logarithmic, but I found that it was in fact linear. I'll put up a plot of the gain as a function of the Servo Gain knob position soon,(plot added) along with results from the other checks.

While disassembling the setup at the X-end to get the PDH box out, I noticed that the signal from the LO is going to the mixer through a Pomona box (no such Pomona box is used at the Y-end). I opened it up and found that it contains just a pair of capacitors in parallel, so it's a phase shifter?. The LO signal also goes through an attenuator. The mixer in both boxes is a ZAD-8+, so why is this part of the setup different?

Both PDH boxes are not hooked up at the moment, I will restore the setups at both ends after running a few more checks on the boxes...

Attachment 1: Servo_gain_calibration.pdf
11963   Sat Jan 30 00:12:22 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingInnolight laser is 10 years old

 Quote: I don't think there's any evidence that the noise eater is bad. That would change the behavior of the relaxation oscillation which is at 1 MHz ?

While I was investigating the AM/PM ratio of the Innolight, I found that there was a pronounced peak in the RIN at ~400kHz, which did not change despite toggling the noise eater switch on the front panel (see plot attached). The plot in the manual suggests the relaxation oscillations should be around 600kHz, but given that the laser power has dropped by a factor of ~3, I think it's reasonable that the relaxation oscillations are now at ~400kHz?

Attachment 1: RIN_comparison.pdf
11967   Mon Feb 1 15:16:28 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingInnolight laser is 10 years old

The Innolight laser control unit has a 25 pin D-sub connector on the rear which is meant to serve as a diagnostics aid, and the voltages at the various pins should tell us the state of various things, like the diode power monitor, laser crystal TEC error temperature, NE status etc etc. Unfortunately, I am unable to locate a manual for this laser (online or physical copy in the filing cabinets), so the only thing I have to go on is a photocopied page that Steve had obtained sometime ago from the manual for the 2W NPRO. According to that, Pin 1 is "Diode laser 1, power monitor, 1V/W". The voltage I measured (with one of the 25 pin breakout boards and a DMM) is 1.038V. I didn't see any fast fluctuations in this value either. It may be that the coefficient indicating "normal" state of operation is different for the 1W model than the 2W model, but this measurement suggests the condition of the diode is alright after all?

I also measured the voltage at Pin 12, which is described in the manual as "Noise Eater, monitor". This value was fluctuating between ~20mV and ~40mV. Toggling the NE switch on the front of the control unit between ON and OFF did not change this behaviour. The one page of the manual that we have, however, doesnt provide any illumination on how we are supposed to interpret the voltage measured at this pin...

11969   Mon Feb 1 18:11:25 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLightwave frequency noise measurement

Before distrubing the beat setup with the spare Lightwave laser, I wanted to see if I could resolve the apparent difference in behaviour between the measured free running noise of the spare Lightwave laser and my earlier measurements with the existing X and Y end lasers above ~5kHz. So I redid the measurement, but this time, on Eric's suggestion, while taking spectra on the SR785, I was careful to maintain the same "CH1 input range" while measuring the control signal spectrum and the measurement noise spectra. The level used was -20dBvpk. I think the measured spectrum shape now makes sense - above ~4kHz, the SR560 noise means that the SNR is poor and so we can only trust the spectra up to this value (the spectra for the end lasers are from earlier measurements where I did not take care to keep the input range constant). Anyways, I think the conclusion is that the spare Lightwave seems to have a free-running frequency noise that is approximately a factor of 3 worse than the Lightwave laser at the Y-end, though this may be because I didn't take the measurement at the optimal operating conditions (diode current, power etc). But I guess this is tolerable and that we can go ahead with the planned swapping out of the existing Innolight at the X-end with this laser.

I will now move the Lightwave laser off the PSL table onto the SP table where I will do some beam characterization and see if I can come up with a satisfactory mode-matching solution for the swap. I've borrowed a beam profiler from the TCN lab for this purpose.

Attachment 1: Free_running_frequency_noise_comparison.pdf
11970   Tue Feb 2 18:35:47 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLightwave NPRO moved from PSL table to SP table

I've moved the following components that was a part of Koji's setup from the PSL table to the SP table so that I may measure the beam profile of the beam from the spare Lightwave NPRO and work on a mode-matching solution for the X-end.

• Lightwave laser
• Lightwave controller
• Interlock switch (Newport)
• HWP and PBS

I did some preliminary characterization of the beam from the Lightwave - in the power controlled mode, setting the "ADJ" parameter to 0 (which is the state recommended in the manual) gives an output power of ~240mW. I used the HWP and PBS to dump most of this into a "Black Hole" beam dump, but I was still getting about 300uW of power after this. This was saturating the CCD in the beam profiler (even though 300uW for a beam of ~1mm should be well within the recommended operating limits as per its manual - maybe the ND filter on the camera isn't really ND4.0), and so I further reduced the "ADJ" parameter on the laser controller to -20, such that I had no saturation of the CCD. I will try and take some data later today. The laser is presently in "Standby" mode, and the SP table is fully covered again.

11973   Wed Feb 3 23:23:47 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLightwave NPRO moved from PSL table to SP table

As Koji pointed out in the previous elog, the CCD beam profiler was ill suited for this measurement. Nevertheless, to get a rough idea of the beam profile, I made a few rearrangements to my earlier setup:

• Kept the HWP at the same place it was, as this is roughly the configuration that is going to be used at the endtable anyways. It was ~7cm from the shutter housing on the laser head (unfortunately, I neglected to take a picture).
• Moved the PBS downstream till it was ~40 cm away (so as to minimize the thermal lensing effect from the ~300mW beam) from the laser head. Rotated the HWP till I got about 6mW of transmitted power (dumped the rest into a black hole)
• Installed a 95% reflecting BS to further attenuate the power to a level suitable for the CCD (dumped the reflected part onto a razor beam dump)
• Installed the CCD beam profiler and captured an image, at ~60cm from laser head. In this configuration, I was able to get a clean image capture without the CCD saturating. Unfortunately, I could not transfer it off the laptop used to operate the beam profiler, I will upload a screen capture tomorrow once I get it. Anyways, the main observation was that the beam appeared quite elliptical (ellipticity ~0.6). It was also not clear to what extent thermal lensing at the PBS/BS was afftecting this measurement.

Following Koji's suggestion, I decided to do a knife-edge measurement as well. The measurement configuration was similar to the one described above, except the PBS/BS were removed, and a 1.0 neutral density filter was was installed ~80cm from the laser head (here the ~300 mW beam was >2mm in diameter, as judged by eye). I used the Ophir power meter, which was why I had to install an ND filter as it is rated for 100mW max power. I will put a picture up tomorrow. Thermal lensing shouldn't be of much consequence here, as we just need the whole beam to fall onto the power meter active area (verified by eye), and only the relative change in power levels as the knife edge cuts the beam matters. I took the cross-sectional profile of the beam by translating the knife in the x-direction (i.e. cut the beam "left to right" ).

Attachments 1 and 2 are the results from todays measurements. It remains to repeat by cutting the beam along the y direction, and see what ellipticity (if any) shows up. I also found some "nominal" numbers in page 4 of the Lightwave datasheet - it tells us to expect a waist 5cm from the shutter housing, with horizontal and vertical 1/e^2 diameters of 0.5mm and 0.38mm respectively. My measurement suggests a horizontal diameter of ~0.25mm (half the "nominal" value?!), and the waist location to be 8.22cm from the shutter housing. I wonder if this discrepancy is a red flag? Could it be due to the HWP? I'm reasonably sure of my calculations, and the fits have come out pretty nicely as well...

Attachment 1: KnifeEdgeScans_x.pdf
Attachment 2: Beamscan_x.pdf
11977   Fri Feb 5 00:23:01 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLightwave NPRO moved from PSL table to SP table

I've repeated the measurement for the x-direction and also did the y-direction, taking into account Koji's suggestion of keeping the power meter as close as possible to the knife edge. Attachment #1 shows a picture of the setup used. Because an ND filter is required to use this particular power meter, the geometrical constraints mean that the closest the power meter can be to the knife edge is ~3cm. I think this is okay.

The result from the re-measured X-scan (Attachments #2 and #4) is consistent with the result from yesterday. Unfortunately, in the y-direction (Attachments #3 and #4), I don't seem to have captured much of the 'curved' part of the profile, even though I've started from pretty much adjacent to the HWP. Nevertheless, the fits look reasonable, and I think I've captured sufficient number of datapoints to have confidence in these fits - although for the Y-scan, the error in the waist position is large. The ellipticity as measured using this method is also significantly smaller than what the CCD beam profiler was telling us.

If we are happy with this measurement, I can go ahead and work on seeing if we can arrive at a minimally invasive mode-matching solution for the X-end table once we switch the lasers out...

Attachment 1: Beamscan_setup.pdf
Attachment 2: Beamscan_x.pdf
Attachment 3: Beamscan_y.pdf
Attachment 4: Zscan.pdf
11978   Fri Feb 5 15:02:13 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingX-end NE cable

[Steve, gautam]

Steve thinks that the X-end Innolight does not come with the noise-eater option (it is an add-on and not a standard feature, and the purchase order for the PSL Innolight explicitly mentions that it comes with the NE option, but the X-end Innolight has no such remarks), which would explain why there is no difference with the noise eater ON/OFF. During earlier investigations however, I had found that there was a cable labelled "Noise-Eater" connected to one of the Modulation Inputs on the rear of the Innolight controller. Today, we traced this down. The modulation input on the rear says "Current Laser Diode 0.1A/V". To this input, a Tee is connected, one end of which is terminated with a 50ohm terminator. The other end of the Tee is connected to a BNC cable labelled "Nosie-Eater", which we traced all the way to the PSL table, where it is just hanging (also labelled "X end green noise eater"), unterminated, at the southeast corner of the PSL table. It is unlikely that this is of any consequence given the indicated coefficient of 0.1A/V, but could this somehow be introducing some junk into the laser diode current which is then showing up as intensity fluctuations in the output? Unfortunately, during the PLL measurements, I did not think to disconnect this BNC and take a spectrum. It would also seem that the noise-eater feedback to the laser diode current is implemented internally, and not via this external modulation input jack (the PSL, which I believe has the noise-eater enabled, has nothing connected to this rear input)...

11979   Fri Feb 5 16:50:24 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingFirst pass at mode-matching

I've done a first pass at trying to arrive at a mode-matching solution for the X-end table once we swtich the lasers out. For this rough calculation, I used a la mode to match my seed beam (with z = 0 being defined as the shutter housing on the current position of the Innolight laser head, and the waist of the beam from the NPRO being taken as the square-root of the X and Y waists as calculated here), to a target beam which has a waist of 35um at the center of the doubling oven (a number I got from this elog). I also ignored the optical path length changes introduced by the 3 half-wave plates between the NPRO and the doubling oven, and also the Faraday isolator. The best a la mode was able to give me, with the only degrees of freedom being the position of the two lenses, was a waist of 41um at the doubling oven. I suppose this number will change once we take into account the effects of the HWPs and the Faraday. Moreover, the optimized solution involves the first lens after the NPRO, L1, being rather close to the second steering mirror, SM2 (see labels in Attachment #2, in cyan), but I believe this arrangement is possible without clipping the beam. Moreover, we have a little room to play with as far as the absolute physical position of the z=0 coordinate is - i.e. the Lightwave NPRO head can be moved ~2cm forward relative to where the Innolight laser head is presently, giving a slightly better match to the target waist (see attachment #3). I will check the lenses we have available at the 40m to see if a more optimal solution can be found, but I'm not sure how much we want to be changing optics considering all this is going to have to be re-done for the new end table... Mode-matching code in Attachment #4...

Attachment 1: Modematch_AUXx.pdf
Attachment 2: NewSetUp.png
Attachment 3: Modematch_AUXx_2.pdf
Attachment 4: XendModeMatch.m.zip
11981   Mon Feb 8 15:36:37 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingAlternative mode-matching scheme

I looked in the optics cabinet to see what lenses we have available, and re-ran the mode-matching calculation to see if we could find a better solution - I'm attaching a plot for what looks like a good candidate (optimized mode-matching efficiency for the X mode is 100%, and for the Y mode, it is 97.98%), though it does involve switching "L1", which is currently a 175mm efl lens, for a 125mm efl lens. I've also indicated on the plot where the various other components are relative to the optimized positions of the lens, and it doesn't look like anything is stacked on top of each other. Also, the beam width throughout is well below 4.7mm, which is the maximum cited width the Faraday can handle, as per its datasheet. "L1" doesn't quite get the waist of the beam to coincide with the geometrical center of the Faraday, but I don't think this is requried? Also, I've optimized the mode matching using the measured X width of the beam (red curve in Attachment #1), and have overlaid the calculated Y width of the beam for the optimized position of the lenses (red curve in Attachment #1). The target waist was 35um at the center of the doubling oven, which the X profile achieves, but the Y profile has a width of 32 um at the same point.

In all the calculations, I've not accounted for possible effects of the HWPs and the Faraday on the beam profile....

Attachment 1: Modematch_alternative.pdf
11983   Tue Feb 9 11:49:47 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap initiated

Steve pointed me to an old elog by Zach where he had measured the waist of the 1W Innolight NPRO. I ran a la mode with these parameters (and the original optics in their original positions prior to last night's activities), and the result is in reasonably good agreement (see Attachment #1) with my initial target waist of 35 um at the center of the doubling oven (which I presume coincides with the center of the doubling crystal). The small discrepancy could be due to errors in position measurement (which I did by eye with a tape measure) or because I did not consider the Faraday in the a la mode calculation. However, I wonder why this value of 35 um was chosen? In this elog, Kiwamu has determined the optimal waist size to be 50um at the center of the doubling crystal. Nevertheless, as per his calculations, the doubling efficiency should be non-zero (about 1% lower than the optimum conversion efficiency) at 35um or 70um, so we should be able to see some green light as long as we are in this fairly large range. So perhaps the fact that we aren't seeing any green light is down to sub-optimal alignment? I don't think there is a threshold power for SHG as such, its just that with lower input power we expect less green light - in any case, 200mW should be producing some green light... From what I could gather from a bunch of old elogs by Aidan, the Raicol PPKPT crystals have dimension 1mm x 1mm x 30mm (long axis along beam propagation), so there isn't a whole lot of room for error perpendicular to the direction of propagation... I wonder if it is possible, for the initial alignment, to have the top cover of the doubling oven open so that we can be sure we are hitting the crystal?

Attachment 1: Innolight_beamProfile.pdf
11984   Tue Feb 9 19:15:36 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - updates

Some updates on the laser swap situation:

1. Mode-matching calculation:
• I should have caught this earlier, but it was an oversight - the 35um waist that Andres used in his calculation is the waist size of the green beam. So I've been off by a factor of sqrt(2) all this while, and it works out that the desired waist size is indeed 50um, consistent with Kiwamu's elogs. Furthermore, as he has detailed in that elog, we actually want the free-space waist of the input beam to the doubling crystal to be ~6.7mm from the geometric center of the PPKPT crystal.
• I redid the calculation using these updated numbers. Attachment #1 shows the results (optimized for the X-waist, Y-profile plotted for comparison and to see what mode-matching efficiency we get). The way I've set up the code is for a la mode to rank the solutions in order of increasing sensitivity to the positions of the lenses. It turns out the least sensitive solution doesn't actually achieve the desired waist size of 50um - moreover, it requires us to change both lenses currently in the path. The next lease sensitive solution, however, achieves the desired waist (i.e. 100% theoretical mode-matching efficiency for the X mode) and only requires us to swap the 125mm lens we put in yesterday for a 150mm lens (and the positions of the lenses change slightly compared to what we had yesterday as well). The sensitivity in a la mode is parametrized by the amount of power remaining in the TEM00 mode while displacing one or more components. It turns out that this figure of merit is only ~1% smaller for the 2nd least sensitive solution compared to the first. So I've chosen to use that solution. Code used to calculate the mode matching is Attachment #2.
• I've also plotted in Attachment #1 what the beam profile would have looked like before our modificatons last night, using the numbers from Zach's elog - as I have already mentioned in the previous elog, it suggests that the waist size would have been 39um, at a location 1.0821m in my coordinate system (desired position according to considerations in the previous 2 bullets is 1.0713). This seems to have been a sub-optimal configuration, but is also subject to errors I made in measuring the positions of the mirrors/lenses (I don't think I had 1cm resolution).

2. Implementing the new solution:

• I've switched out the 125mm efl lens for a 150mm efl lens from the same Thorlabs lens kit. I've also moved both the lenses to their new appropriate positions.
• Unfortunately, I had put in some irides in the beampath before calculating this new (more appropriate solution). As a result, both the lenses are off from their optimal positions by a few mm because the irides get in the way. I guess we just have to live with this for now, and can adjust the positions of the lenses once we actually get some green light and are happy with all the other alignments...
• As noted in the previous elog, I suspect that we saw no green light yesterday because we were missing the doubling crystal altogether (given that we have only a 1mm x 1mm area to aim for - the Faraday serves as a coarse constraint, though its aperture has ~25times this area!). I tried playing around with the two steering mirrors immediately after the NPRO to see if I could get some green light out, but have not been successful yet. I may make some further trials later in the evening/tomorrow...

As I check the manual of the Innolight (pg17) and the datasheet of the Lightwave, I wonder if the Quarter Wave Plate that was placed immediately after the Innolight laser head is even necessary now - I assume the purpose of the combination of QWP+HWP was to turn the elliptically polarized light from the Innolight into linearly polarized light before the Faraday. But the Lightwave already produces linearly polarized light. I will check out what is the configuration on the Y-end table...

Attachment 1: Modematch_X.pdf
Attachment 2: XendModeMatch.m.zip
11985   Wed Feb 10 17:57:15 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - updates

After the discussion at the meeting, I decided to go ahead and open the top of the oven so that I could get a visual on where the crystal was located - this helped in the alignment, and I was able to get some green light out of the oven. I had to tweak the position of the Doubling oven a little (with the top open) in order to align the crystal to the beam axis. However - I was only able to get ~140uW of green light going into the Faraday. I had measured the power at various points along the beam path recently with the old setup. We used to have ~860uW of green going into the Faraday there. To see if I could improve the situation a little, I checked that the beam was reasonably centered on both apertures of the IR Faraday, and then removed the irides upstream of the doubling oven. These were preventing me from placing the lenses exactly as per the a la mode solution. Once the irides were removed, I moved the lenses to their optimal positions as best as I could with a tape measure to mark out distances. I then further tweaked the position of the doubling oven using the 4 axis stage, monitoring the green power while doing so. The best I could get was ~200uW. Perhaps the positions of the lenses need to be optimized further. I also checked the IR power before and after the IR Faraday - these numbers are ~260mW and ~230mW respectively (I maximized the transmitted power through the Faraday by rotating the HWP, the QWP that was in the beam path has now been removed as the Lightwave outputs linearly polarized light), and compare favourably to the numbers in the old setup. Doing a naive scaling accounting for the fact that we have less power going into the doubling crystal, I would expect ~700uW of green light coming out, so it looks like the mode matching into the doubling crystal is indeed sub-optimal. However, now that things are roughly aligned, I hope the optimization will go faster...

11988   Fri Feb 12 17:05:40 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - green light recovered but no flashes in the arm

After carefully tweaking the mode-matching of the IR into the crystal and the four-axis translation stage on which the doubling oven is mounted, I managed to recover 800uW of green power going into the green Faraday. Considering we have ~225mW of IR power coming out of the IR faraday (and roughly that amount going into the SHG crystal), I'd say this is pretty consistent (if not slightly better) with a recent power budget I had made for the X end. The amount of green power we get out of the doubling crystal is very sensitive to the alignment of the crystal to the beam axis. I suspect we could improve the situation slightly if the mode-matching lenses were mounted on translational stages so we could tweak their position, but the current situation on the X endtable does not provide space for this. In any case, I'd say we are at least as good as we were before, and so this should be an adequate fix until the new end-table is installed (though I don't know why we aren't seeing the predicted SHG conversion efficiency of 3-4% as predicted by Kiwamu's calculations, we are getting more like .36% conversion efficiency)...

Because the alignment of the beam before the doubling oven had changed, I had to adjust the steering mirrors to make the green beam go into the green faraday. I had placed a couple of irides for the green beam as a reference of the old path into the arm, and I used these to adjust some of the green mirrors to center the green beam on these. However, I did not observe any flashes in the arm. I will check if we are still mode-matched to the arm, and if the lenses downstream of the doubling oven need to be moved....

11990   Mon Feb 15 12:28:03 2016 gautamUpdateGeneralSomething has gone wrong - was there a power outage?

I came into the 40m a few minutes ago, and noticed the following (approximately in this order):

• The striptool plots projected onto the wall were gone, even though the projector seemed to be working fine
• There was no light at all in the IFO
• There was an incessnt beeping noise coming from inside the lab.

To investigate further, I checked today's summary pages, and whatever caused this, happened around 730am today morning (approx 5 hours ago). I also saw that all the watchdogs were tripped, except MC3, BS and SRM.

I then tracked down the beeping - I believe that it is coming from Megatron.(in fact, it is coming from the Jetstor..)

I also found that the PSL is OFF, and the Marconi, though ON, has the display parameters set to values that I normally see when it is first turned ON (i.e. the carrier frequency is 1200MHz, the output is -140dBm etc - this is what led me to suspect that somehow the power connection was interrupted? As far as the workstation computers are concerned, I don't think ROSSA was affected, but pianosa is frozen and donatella is at the login screen. The CDS overview MEDM screen refuses to load correctly (though some of the other MEDM screens are working fine). I'm not entirely sure how to go about fixing all of this, so for now, I'm leaving the PSL off and I've shutdown the remaining watchdogs.

It just occurred to me to check the status of the vacuum - the MEDM screen seems to suggest everything is fine (see Attachment #1). I went down to the X end to do a quick check on the status of the turbo pumps and everything looks normal there...

Attachment 1: Vac_15Feb2016.png
11995   Tue Feb 16 23:42:22 2016 gautamUpdateGeneralPower Glitch recovery - arms recovered

I was able to realign the arms, lock them, and have run the dither align to maximize IR transmission - looks like things are back to normal now. For the Y-end, I used the green beam initially to do some coarse alignment of the ITM and ETM, till I was able to see IR flashes in the control room monitors. I then tweaked the alignment of the tip-tilts till I saw TEM00 flashes, and then enabled LSC. Once the arm was locked, I ran the dither align. I then tweaked ITMX alignment till I saw IR flashes in the X arm as well, and was able to lock it with minimal tweaking of ETMX. The LSC actuation was set to ETMX when the models were restarted - I changed this to ITMX actuation, and now both arms are locked with nominal IR transmissions. I will center all the Oplev spots tomorrow before I start work on getting the X green back - I've left the ETM Oplev servos on for now.

While I was working, I noticed that frame builder was periodically crashing. I had to run mxstream restart a few times in order to get CDS back to the nominal state. I wonder if this is a persistent effect of the date/time issues we were seeing earlier today?

11999   Fri Feb 19 00:42:19 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - beam ellipticity from laser?

Eric and I spent some time yesterday night trying to recover the green in the arm after the laser swap. The problem essentially was that though I was getting ~800uW of green out of the doubling oven, the mode wasn't clean, and hence, the beam profile looked really messed up just before entering the arm cavity.We got to a point where we thought we were getting a good mode out of the doubling oven (as judged by propagating this beam onto the wall with the help of a mirror). But we were only getting ~400uW of green power. I tried tweaking the alignment of the oven on the 4 axis stage for a while, but was not able to improve the situation much. So I decided to start from scratch:

• First, I made sure that the IR beam from the laser was hitting the first steering mirror approximately at the center (see here for the optical layout).
• Then I used the two steering mirrors immediately after the laser to make sure that the IR beam was hitting the first lens and the HWP before the IR faraday roughly at their center.
• Next, I propagated the beam through the IR Faraday, again using SM1 and SM2 to do the steering - initial alignment through the Faraday was done by eye, and I did  some fine adjustment by maximizing the power coming out of the Faraday. We have 252mW of IR going into the IR Faraday, and 225mW coming out. I judged that these numbers were reasonable, and compared favourably to what we had with the Innolight.
• Keeping the downstream alignment, I used SM1 and SM2 to hit the second lens roughly at its center. I then re-measured the distance from this lens to the center of the doubling oven, and tweaked this slightly to match my mode-matching calculation.
• I then tried to carefully play with this lens and the alignment of the doubling oven using the four axis stage. After (many) iterations, and with some luck, I managed to find what I judged to be a good alignment. Using the mirror-on-a-stick to reflect the green beam out of the doubler onto the wall nearby (see Attachment #1, all photos taken using my phone camera), the mode looks reasonably clean. I was also able to get 1mW of green power out of the doubler, an efficiency of ~2%/W. The doorknob should give some sense of scale, but at this point, the mode looks pretty clean (this was not the case previously).
• I then aligned the post doubler optics to send the beam through the green Faraday (~0.85mW of green out of the green Faraday) and through the two irides I had put in before swapping the lasers. As the beam propagates, however, some ellipticity in it becomes more and more apparent - especially after the f=-100mm lens between the two piezo mirrors. Attachment #2 shows the beam immediately after this lens, while Attachment #3 shows the beam on the iris just before it is sent into the arm cavity.

I am beginning to wonder if this ellipticity is inherent from the IR beam from the laser? My beamscan results suggest that the beam is more divergent in the "P direction" as compared to the "S direction", which is borne out by these photographs. And if this is indeed the case, do we need to add cylindrical lenses to correct this?

Unrelated to this work: The ITMX Oplev seems to have wandered off so the X arm won't lock. I am not realigning the Oplev for now, but am turning the ITMX Oplev servo off for the night.

Perhaps related to my work on the endtable: The ETMX oplev MEDM readings seemed to be frozen, though there was red light on the QPD on the endtable. Checking the CDS overview screen, I saw that all models on c1iscex had crashed. I sshed into c1iscex and restarted all the models, but the IOP block remained red. I checked the datetime, and found that this was wrong - so I followed the instructions here, but the "Diag Word" block remains red. I am shutting down the watchdog for ETMX and leaving this as is for now... This seems to have happened before...

Attachment 1: IMG_6287.JPG
Attachment 2: IMG_6288.JPG
Attachment 3: IMG_6286.JPG
12002   Mon Feb 22 13:56:52 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap -reflected beam from ETM aligned

I tried aligning the green beam, elliptical as it is, to the arm by using the various steering mirrors after the doubling oven. The following was done:

1. Eric and I aligned the beam through the green Faraday - we levelled the beam using an iris to check the beam height immediately after the Faraday and a little further along the beam propagation direction.
2. We checked that the beam is reasonably centered on all the lenses. We changed the lens holder for one of the lenses from a Thorlabs model to a Newport model, so as to get the lens to the correct height such that the green beam was roughly centered on it.
3. I then tweaked the alignment of the steering mirrors until the reflected beam from the ETM roughly coincided with the input beam. The return beam is getting clipped slightly on the way back through the green Faraday, so some more alignment needs to be done. However, given the ITMX situation, I can't align the arm to IR, so I'm holding off on further alignment for now...
12005   Tue Feb 23 17:46:09 2016 gautamUpdateSUSEQ

Looks like another EQ 4.8 took out all the watchdogs, I've restored them, everything looks alright and doesn't look like any magnets got stuck this time...

Attachment 1: SUS_Summary_23Feb.png
12006   Tue Feb 23 23:01:16 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - Green PDH locking

Given that we were seeing green flashes in the arms, I tried to see if I could get the green locked to the arm in a nice mode. For a start, I tried hooking up the PDH box and LO using the same settings as was being used previously. However, this did not work. I suppose we will have to do the whole AM/PM measurement for the Lightwave as well before we can determine what would be a suitable frequency for the LO. The AM measurement was relatively straightforward, I just repeated the same steps as detailed here. The two attachments show the AM response (one from 10kHz to 5MHz, the other for a narrower range of 100kHz to 1MHz, both with an excitation amplitude of 0dBm). To see if I could guess some sweetspot for operation, I tried setting the LO frequency to the two marked notch frequencies but was unsuccessful in getting the PDH lock going. At the moment, the alignment for the optics that picks off the IR after the doubler and routes it to the fiber are ccompletely misaligned, I will align these and do the PM measurement tomorrow and then we should conclusively be able to say what the appropriate frequency is to actuate on the PZT.

Unrelated to this work: the KEPCO high voltage power supply that drives the green steering mirror PZTs was switched off - I suppose this has been the case since the power outage last week. I turned it back on and reset it to the nominal settings: Vout = 100V, and Imax_out = 10mA, the driver board is currently drawing ~7mA which I judged to be consistent with the values labelled on the unit.

Attachment 1: AM_scan.pdf
Attachment 2: AM_scan_zoomed.pdf
12009   Wed Feb 24 19:29:13 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - Green PDH locked

After the discussion at the meeting today, I decided to try and lock the green by sweeping through PZT dither frequencies in the vicinity of 200kHz without worrying about the AM/PM ratio for now. I was able to lock the PDH loop relatively quickly, at an empirically determined PZT dither frequency of 213.873kHz, 2Vpp (the amplitude was copied from the value at the Y-end). For today's efforts, I borrowed the sum+HPF pomona box from the Y-end, I will make a replica given that we are using Lightwave lasers at both ends now. After adjusting the PZT sliders and lenses on the translational stages at the endtable to maximize the green transmission as best as I could, I was able to get GTRX up to about 0.07 - this is far off from the value of ~0.25-0.3 I seem to remember us having with the old setup, even though we have more green light into the arm cavity. I will take a measurement of the loop transfer function to see what sort of bandwidth we have...

12011   Thu Feb 25 11:32:04 2016 gautamUpdateGeneralPower Glitch again

 Quote: 10:15 power glitch today. ETMX Lightwave and air conditions turned back on

The CDS situation was not as catastrophic as the last time, it was sufficient for me to ssh into all the frontends and restart all the models. I also checked that monit was running on all the FEs and that there was no date/time issues like we saw last week. Everything looks to be back to normal now, except that the ntpd process being monitored on c1iscex says "execution failed". I tried restarting the process a couple of times, but each time it returns the same status after a few minutes.

12012   Fri Feb 26 01:52:44 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - Green PDH OLTF

I spent some more time today trying to optimize the modulation frequency and amplitude for the X end PDH, and the alignment/mode-matching of the green to the arm. Some notes:

1. After my best efforts to tweak the alignment and mode-matching into the arm by using the two lenses on translational stages, I was able to get the green TRX up to about 0.06. As mentioned in a previous elog, this is much lower than what we had with the old setup, even though we have more green power going into the arm now. However, the mode looks pretty bright and clean on the monitors. Could the large ellipticity in the beam is the limiting factor now?
2. I measured the transfer function (attachment #1) of the PDH loop once I had settled on a modulation frequency and amplitude that I judged to be optimal (indicated on the plot). The UGF is ~7kHz. The PDH error signal as viewed on the oscilloscope is comparable to what we had with the Innolight. All this optimization was done empirically, I have yet to do the PM measurement. I can't seem to get more than 0.2 mW of IR arriving at the fiber coupler, the number I found in some older elogs is 2mW with the old setup.
3. I did some alignment of the PSL green and the X arm green onto the beat PD on the PSL table. After the power glitches, the doubling ovens do not automatically turn on, I had turned on the end ovens earlier, and today I turned on the PSL oven. I noticed some strange behaviour initially - though the setpoint was 36.9 deg C, when I enabled the heater, there was a large overshoot (it went to almost 50deg C). I disabled the heating at this point, and re-enabled it once the oven had cooled down to ~35 deg C. I didn't observe anything like this while turning on the end ovens. But the PID parameters at the PSL table are very different, so perhaps this large overshoot and ringing is to be expected. In any case, I managed to get this working. But I was not able to find a beatnote tonight.

To do:

1. Verify that the two beams are aligned on the beat PD - I think I've done this carefully by checking the near and far-field, but I will double check.
2. Find the beat note and look at the ALS noise performance with this new setup to see if it is usable even though GTRX is only 20% of what it used to be..
3. Fix the coupling of the IR pickoff into the fiber at the endtable. Once this is done, I can do the PM measurement, and finding a beatnote may be easier given the IR beat PDs have a much wider bandwidth...
Attachment 1: X_PDH_OLTF_20160225.pdf
12013   Mon Feb 29 17:17:26 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - still no green beatnote

I continued the hunt for a green beatnote today - I decided to take the output from the RF amplifiers sitting on the PSL table and directly connect it to the analyzer in the control room while I swept the temperature of the end laser 10,000 counts on either side of a temperature at which I had taken this measurement - so I expect the beatnote should be found somewhere in this neighbourhood. But I did not see any peaks throughout the sweep. I re-checked that the mode overlap onto the BBPD is reasonable. We have considerably less transmitted green power from the arm now than we did before the laser swap (by a factor of ~3) but I still expected to see some sort of beat signal.

It would be handy to have the IR beat set up as well for this process, but as mentioned in a previous elog, I was getting only ~0.1 mW of IR power incident on the coupler at the end table last week. As I had suspected, tweaking the alignment of the steering optics for the pick-off IR beam after the doubler improved the situation somewhat, and I am now getting about 1mW of IR power incident on the coupler at the end table. But I've not been able to adjust the alignment into the fiber at the end such that I get any IR light at the PSL table.

12016   Wed Mar 2 17:42:19 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - some progress

[Koji, Johannes, gautam]

With Koji's and Johannes' help, I managed to resolve the coupling the pick-off IR beam into the fiber at the X end. I will put up a more detailed elog about how this was done - but in summary, we have about 31% coupling efficiency into the fiber, which isn't stellar, but I felt this was adequate to find a beatnote. Koji also pointed out that the collimation telescope attached to the fiber at the X-end is poorly mounted - this is something to fix when we swap endtables, but this was not addressed right now because if we were to adjust this, we would also have to adjust the mode matching into the fiber.

I then attempted to tune the temperature to find the IR beatnote. While doing so, I noticed some strange features of the controller - there are essentially two display modes relevant to laser crystal temperature, one which allows us to change the setpoint and one which is an actual readback of the temperature (this one can't be adjusted). While tuning the temperature, I noticed that the latter display ("LT") did not change in value. On a hunch, I disconnected the "SLOW" control BNC on the front panel, and voila, I was able to tune the setpoint and observe the measured temperature shift accordingly. I was thus able to find a reasonably strong IR beatnote (-9dBm) at T ~ 44.6 deg C (the beat PD was set to 0dB attenuation, i.e. high gain mode). However, the moment I reconnected the SLOW control BNC, the beatnote vanished (it gradually shifted out of range of the HP network analyzer), and the same thing happens if I terminate the SLOW control BNC connector! I don't understand this behaviour, as the manual says that the range of voltages accepted to this input is +/-10V, so I would assume 0V means do nothing, but clearly this isn't the case, as the beatnote is being shifted in frequency by > 1GHz, and the tuning coefficient is listed as 5GHz/V in the manual. This situation needs further investigation.

Since I had a reasonable IR beatnote setup, I returned the HP analyzer to the control room and tried to see if a green beatnote was present as well - I first ran ASS, then maximized the green transmission using the PZT mirrors, but no beatnote is evident. The contrast isn't great, the ratio of AUX power to PSL power on the green beat PD is something like 5:1, so this probably requires some tuning as well. I will update this elog after today evening's activities...

12017   Thu Mar 3 01:25:50 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - 2 IR + 1 green beatnotes found

[ericq, gautam]

Summary of work done tonight:

• The PDH setup at the Y-end has been restored after I had pulled the whole thing apart some weeks ago to see that nothing was obviously wrong with the uPDH box
• Adjusted the temperature of the Y-end laser such that a beatnote was obtained - I did this using the IR beat (the end laser temp wasn't updated after the PSL temp was changed recently)
• The Y green beatnote was found easily, there was no alignment on the PSL table necessary, though there is room to improve this situation (beatnote amplitude was ~ -35dBm though we are used to more like -25dBm)
• The X green beat remains elusive - I played around with the alignment onto the green beat PD at the PSL table for some time, and the two beams are aligned as far as I can tell given the constrained area available in that area. It may be that I have to clear some optics, do a rigorous near-field/far-field alignment of the two beams and then try again
• Since we had two strong (-5dBm for Y, -9dBm for X) IR beatnotes, we decided to take the ALS noise spectra for these. So as to not overload the amplifiers, a -10dB attenuator (-6dB) was placed directlty after the Y (X) IR beat PDs, before routing these signals through the usual green beat signal chain. Attached is the measured spectrum. The new values of the temperature sliders at which beatnotes can be found are : 1700 for X and -5990 for Y (spectra taken at these values).

To do:

• For both ends, find the three temperatures at which we have beatnotes, and choose the middle one
• PM characterization of AUX X laser - it may be that the excess noise in the X spectrum is due to sub-optimal PDH
• Align the Y green better at the endtable, also take an OLTF measurement for the Y PDH loop
• Re-check the alignment onto the green beat PD for the X beat

Remarks:

• The Lightwave laser controllers differ from the Innolight ones in that it is not possible to directly set the signal to the SLOW control BNC to 0, and have that as the new reference point. Rather, there seems to be some setpoint which is saved as a reference, and the moment any signal is applied to the SLOW control BNC, it adjusts the actual temperature w.r.t. this saved setpoint. I believe it is possible to update this setpoint (it is also possible to update the calibration of the power readout, this is an additional issue at the X end), but since this wasn't critical, I've left it as is for the moment...
• The ALS nosie spectrum for the Y arm IR beat is surprisingly good!
Attachment 1: IR_beat_20160303_2.pdf
12019   Fri Mar 4 01:11:41 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - both green beatnotes found

The good news: both green beatnotes have now been found. The problem was alignment on the green beat PD on the PSL table which I fixed. They are about -40dBm in amplitude (compare to -25dBm we used to see). But looking at the phase tracker Q output seems to suggest that there is adequate signal...

The bad news: the ALS noise still looks bad (see attachment)- I think the IR beat for the Y was perhaps marginally better. The beat amplitude for the X beat was optimized on the PSL table with the help of the oscilloscope. There may be some headroom for improvement with the Y beat.

I also did the AM/PM measurement for the replaced lightwave, chose an LO frequency based on this, and took the loop OLTF, plots to follow...

To do:

• Check Y-end PDH loop OLTF
• Optimize beat note amplitude of Y beat
• Align Y-green better to the arm using steering mirrors on the endtable.
• Double check calibration of PM/AM measurement and that I've picked the correct LO frequency/ I don't have any other ideas for improving the situation with the X beat though
Attachment 1: IR_beat_20160303_green.pdf
12023   Sat Mar 5 23:31:01 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - some updates

I've been a little behind on my elogs so here is an update of the end laser situation.

IR beat for X-end recovered

• The issue was optimizing the alignment into the fiber at the end table.
• Using Fluke fiber illuminator helped in aligning IR pickoff into mount. Useful note: there is an unused fiber running between the X-end and the PSL table, by connecting these at the PSL table, I was able to monitor the coupled power while remaining at the X-end.
• Another major issue was that one of the steering mirrors (marked "Y1" in Attachment #1) was mounted with AR coated side facing the beam. This was fixed by simply rotating the post, the mirror was not removed from its mount. I can only assume that this mirror is in this kind of mount because of space constraints.
• The fiber has a collimating telescope attached to the end of it. In principle, this gives us more angular acceptance while coupling the beam into the fiber, but as I found out, the acceptance is still tiny (I don't have a number to quantify it). Furthermore, the Fluke visual fault locator revealed that the lens in the collimating telescope is not set up great - when re-doing the X end table, we should fix this situation so as to have a fairly large collimated beam coming out of the fiber when illuminated from the other end, this would make the mode matching much easier.
• Bottom line: we have ~1.2 mW of IR light incident on the coupler at the end table, and ~400uW of IR power at the PSL table => coupling efficiency is ~30%, not stellar, but sufficient for now I guess. After the various splitters etc, there is about 160uW of EX IR light and ~300uW of PSL IR light incident on the beat PD, and the beat amplitude is about -9dBm.

AM/PM characterization of newly installed Lightwave

• Having recovered the IR beat, I set out to do the PM characterization for the end laser.
• Attachment #2 shows the electrical setup. The IR beat was piped to the X-end via an existing long cable that runs between the vertex and the endtable. Not shown in the diagram, but I used a 20dB coupler to keep track of the beat frequency on the HP spectrum analyzer while doing this measurement.
• I restricted myself to the range between 100kHz and 500kHz to do the scan, because it takes quite a while to do the scan with fine resolution (IF bandwidth = 10Hz).
• To calibrate the magnitude response to rad/V, I divided the output of the network analyzer (converting dB to absolute magnitude first) by the amplitude of the signal seen on the monitoring oscilloscope while the PLL is unlockedThis number was 96mV/rad.
• To confirm that the error signal spectrum is indeed a good approximation of the "plant" transfer function (i.e that 100kHz >> UGF of loop transfer function of the PLL), I measured the loop TF of the PLL - Attachment #3 suggests a UGF of ~ 16kHz, which means the assumption is reasonable.
• Excitation amplitude was -25dBm (which gave reasonable SNR), and 3 averages were taken.
• The AM measurement was done using the same procedure as detailed here - the DC block was used. The DC level of the PD output was 2.72 V. The excitation amplitude was 0dBm.
• Attachment #4 shows the AM response, PM response and PM/AM ratio
• The peak in the PM/AM ratio at 256620 Hz is compelling because it is not too sharp (and so we can be reasonably confident we are at a good operating point) and the PM response of 23.83 rad/V is also acceptable.
• As a consistency check, the PM response of ~30rad/V at 100kHz => PZT actuator gain is ~3MHz/V, which is in the region we expect it to be...

Next steps in recovering ALS and trying to lock again

• Having set the PDH modulation frequency to 256.62kHz, I took the spectrum of ALS noise using the IR beat (i.e. by piping the IR beat signal through the electronics the green beats usually go through - 6dB and 10dB attenuators were placed immediately after the beat PDs for the X and Y arms respectively, to make the signal levels compatible with the electronics), Attachment #5 unfortunately suggests that the noise performance is still poor, and I suspect the situation will be similar using the green beat (though I have not measured this yet).
• The modulation depth could be sub-optimal for the X-end PDH, I have to measure this and check that it is at an acceptable level. This will also tell me if I need to change the sum+HPF pomona box used to send the PDH control signal + piezo dither signal to the laser PZT. In order to do this, I need to know what the input impedance to the FAST control BNC is - the manual isn't very helpful, it just says the piezo has a capacitance less than 10,000pF. I suppose I will have to actually measure this.
• PDH loop OLTFs have to be re-measured for both ends to check that the servo gain's are appropriately placed.
• We know that the mode-matching into the arm for the X end is poor (I have yet to quantify this) - I suspect that the beam ellipticity is the main culprit. However, the DC transmitted power levels at the PSL table are comparable to (even slightly better than) the Y arm numbers, and so this cannot be the sole reason why the X-arm ALS noise is so much worse... I will continue my investigations next week...
Attachment 1: AUXxTelescope.png.png
Attachment 2: PM_setup.pdf
Attachment 3: PLLolg.pdf
Attachment 4: AMPM20160303.pdf
Attachment 5: IRbeat_20160304.pdf
12024   Sun Mar 6 15:24:05 2016 gautamUpdateCDSFB down again

I came in to check the status of the nitrogen and noticed that the striptool panels in the control room were all blank.

• PMC was unlocked but I was able to relock it using the usual procedure
• FB seems to be down: I was unable to ssh into it (or any of the FEs for that matter). I checked the lights on the RAID array, they are all green. I am holding off on doing a hard reboot of FB in case there is some other debugging that can be done first
• None of the watchdogs were tripped, but judging by the green spots on the mirrors, all of them are moving quite a bit. I've shutdown the watchdogs on all the optics except the MC mirrors, but the ITMs and ETMs still seem to be moving quite a bit.

I am leaving things in this state for now. It is unclear why this should have happened, it doesn't seem like there was a power glitch?

Attachment 1: 58.png
12026   Mon Mar 7 23:51:36 2016 gautamUpdateGreen LockingLaser swap - some improvement
 Quote: Next steps in recovering ALS and trying to lock again Having set the PDH modulation frequency to 256.62kHz, I took the spectrum of ALS noise using the IR beat (i.e. by piping the IR beat signal through the electronics the green beats usually go through - 6dB and 10dB attenuators were placed immediately after the beat PDs for the X and Y arms respectively, to make the signal levels compatible with the electronics), Attachment #5 unfortunately suggests that the noise performance is still poor, and I suspect the situation will be similar using the green beat (though I have not measured this yet). The modulation depth could be sub-optimal for the X-end PDH, I have to measure this and check that it is at an acceptable level. This will also tell me if I need to change the sum+HPF pomona box used to send the PDH control signal + piezo dither signal to the laser PZT. In order to do this, I need to know what the input impedance to the FAST control BNC is - the manual isn't very helpful, it just says the piezo has a capacitance less than 10,000pF. I suppose I will have to actually measure this. PDH loop OLTFs have to be re-measured for both ends to check that the servo gain's are appropriately placed. We know that the mode-matching into the arm for the X end is poor (I have yet to quantify this) - I suspect that the beam ellipticity is the main culprit. However, the DC transmitted power levels at the PSL table are comparable to (even slightly better than) the Y arm numbers, and so this cannot be the sole reason why the X-arm ALS noise is so much worse... I will continue my investigations next week...

Attachment #1

Since I could not determine how many volts at the LO input of the pomona box input corresponds to how many volts at the laser PZT, I measured the transfer function between these points using the Agilent network analyzer. The measured TF suggests that for a function generator output of 2Vpp, we get approximately 75mrad of phase modulation, which compares reasonably well with the value of 120mrad reported here. I did not attempt to further increase the LO output signal to push this number closer to 120mrad, as with 2Vpp from the function generator we get +7dBm at the mixer, which is what it wants - so I wanted to avoid any attenuators etc...

Attachments #2 and #3

After ensuring that we have appreciable phase modulation, I set out to measure the PDH OLTFs and adjust the gain on the uPDH boxes accordingly. The X end gain is at 6.0, and the Y end gain is at 4.0. Before measuring the Y-end OLTF, I adjusted the steering mirrors to increase GTRY to ~0.45. GTRX remains a paltry 0.05... But the UGFs seem satisfactory..

Attachment #4

Finally, I took the ALS noise spectrum for the green beats. The beat note amplitudes on the network analyzer in the control room are still puny compared to what we had, -40dBm for Y and -45dBm for X. But the phase tracker Q values are ~1000 and ~3000 for X and Y respectively, which are pretty close to what these were if memory serves me right. There may still be some room for optimization of the PDH loop gains etc, and we could perhaps look at lowering the gain of the REFL PD at the X end? I also have yet to do the sweep for the 3 temperatures at which we can find a beatnote and park at the middle one...

These spectra suggest we could even possibly try locking? We are approximately a factor of 3 above the reference for X and on par with the reference for Y....

Unrelated to this work: I also realinged the PMC, PMC transmission is now 0.730V up from ~0.65V.

Attachment 1: PomonaTF.pdf
Attachment 2: XPDH.pdf
Attachment 3: YPDH.pdf
Attachment 4: greenbeat_20160307.pdf
12029   Thu Mar 10 16:29:32 2016 gautamUpdateendtable upgradeInventory check

I did a quick sweep of the lab to find out what hardware has already been acquired for the X-end table upgrade. The attached PDF is an inventory check in the spirit of this elog.

Some things we have to decide:

• Are we okay with using the old green coloured faraday mount for the IR faraday? I have in hand a piece identical to the one used at the Y-end for the green faraday, that is red in colour, so I guess we can switch this out.
• The way in which the doubling oven is currently mounted at the X-end is using some posts cobbled together. The Y-end looks to have a custom mount machined for it (see Attachment #2). Do we want to go ahead and get something like this done?
• I suppose it is okay to reuse all the old optics (mirrors, lenses, harmonic separators) and PDs? It may be that we need to order som extra mirrors/lenses/posts (this will become clear once I do the layout)

I have not gotten around to planning the layout or doing drawings. I will try and first work through a mode-matching solution to make sure we have all the required lenses. It may be that we need some 1" or 2" mirrors as well. The beam from the lightwave NPRO is quite elliptical, but we have a number of cylindrical lenses in hand already if we decide we want to use these, so I guess we don't have to worry about this...

This is quite a preliminary list, and I will add/update over the coming days as I do more detailed planning, but have I missed out anything obvious?

Attachment 1: Inventory_check.pdf
Attachment 2: Doubler_comparison.pdf
ELOG V3.1.3-