I tried the REFL33Q for controlling MICH in the PRMI configuration (#6407)

The result was --

 It was barely able to lock MICH in a short moment but didn't stay locked for more than 10 sec. Not good.

(Tricks)

[Koji, Rana, and Kevin]

I have been trying to measure the shot noise of REFL55 by shining a light bulb on the photodiode and measuring the noise with a spectrum analyzer. The measured dark noise of REFL55 is 35 nV/rtHz. I have been able to get 4 mA of DC current on the photodiode but have not been able to see any shot noise.

I previously measured the RF transimpedance of REFL55 by simultaneously measuring the transfer functions of REFL55 and a new focus 1611 photodiode with light from an AM laser. By combining these two transfer functions I calculated that the RF transimpedance at 55 MHz is ~ 200 ohms. With this transimpedance the shot noise at 4 mA is only ~ 7 nV/rtHz and would not be detectable above the dark noise.

The value of 200 ohms for the transimpedance seems low but it agrees with Alberto's previous measurements. By modeling the photodiode circuit as an RLC circuit at resonance with the approximate values of REFL55 (a photodiode capacitance of 100 pF and resistance of 10 ohms and an inductance of 40 nH), I calculated that the transimpedance should be ~ 230 ohms at 55 MHz. Doing the same analysis for the values of REFL11 shows that the transimpedance at 11 MHz should be ~ 2100 ohms. A more careful analysis should include the notch filters but this should be approximately correct at resonance and suggests that the 200 ohm measurement is correct for the current REFL55 circuit.

RF Transimpedance of 200Ohm means the residual impedance at the resonance (R_res) of 40,
if you consider the amplifier gain (G_amp) of 10 and the voltage division by the 50Ohm termination,
this corresponds to the thermal noise level of Sqrt(4 kB T R_res)*G_amp/2 = 4nV/rtHz at the analyzer, while you observed 35nV/rtHz.

35nV/rtHz corresponds to 7nV/rtHz for the input noise of the preamp. That sounds too big if you consider the voltage noise of opamp MAX4107 that is 0.75nV/rtHz.

What is the measurement noise level of the RF analyzer?

[Rana, Koji]

REFL55 was modified. The noise level confirmed. The PD is now ready to be installed.

Kevin's measurement report told us that something was wrong with REFL55 PD. The transimpedance looked OK, but the noise level was terrible (equivalent to the shotnoise of 14mA DC current).

Rana and I looked at the circuit, and cleaned up the circuit, by removing unnecessary 11MHz notch, 1k shunt resister, and so on.

I made a quick characterization of the PD.

First page:

The transimpedance ws measured as a function of the frequency. The resonance was tuned at 55MHz. The notch was tuned at 110MHz in order to reject the second harmonics. The transimpedance was ~540V/A at 55MHz. (For the calibration, I believed the DC transimpedance of 50V/A and 10000V/A for the DC paths of this PD and #1611, respectively, as well as the RF impedance (700V/A0 of #1611.

Second page:

Output noise levels were measured with various amount of photocurrent using white light from a light bulb. The measurement was perforemed well above the noise level of the measurement instruments.

Third page:

The measured output noise levels were converted into the equivalent current noise on the PD. The dark noise level agrees with the shot noise level of 1.5mA (i.e. 22pA/rtHz). In deed, the noise level went up x~1.5 when the photocurrent is ~1.4mA.

[Suresh, Koji]

   I used a matlab code written by Koji to analyse the transimpedance and current noise data  of REFL55.  The details are in the attached pdf file.

Resonance is at 55.28 MHz:

Q of 4.5, Transimpedance of 615 Ohms

shot noise intercept current = 1.59 mA

current noise =21 pA/rtHz

Notch at 110.78 MHz:

Q of 54.8 Transimpedance of 14.68 Ohms.

I measured the optical and electrical transfer functions for REFL55 and calculated the RF transimpedance. To measure the optical transfer function, I used the light from an AM laser to simultaneously measure the transfer functions of REFL55 and a New Focus 1611 photodiode. I combined these two transfer functions to get the RF transimpedance for REFL55. I also measured the electrical transfer function by putting the RF signal from the network analyzer in the test input of the photodiode.

I put all of the plots on the wiki at http://lhocds.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:8000/40m/Electronics/REFL55.

I upgraded the old REFL199 to the new REFL55.

To do that I had to replace the old photodiode inside, switching to a 2mm one.

Electronics and optical transfer functions, non normalized are shown in the attached plot.

The details about the modifications are contained in this dedicated wiki page (Upgrade_09 / RF System / Upgraded RF Photodiodes)

[koji, gautam]

Summary:

We could not find problems with any individual piece of the REFL55 electronics chain, from photodiode to ADC.  Nevertheless, the PRMI fringes witnessed by REFL55 is ~x10 higher than ~two weeks ago, when the PRMI could be repeatably and reliably locked using REFL55 signals (ETMs misaligned).

Details:

1. Koji prepared a spare whitening board. However, before he swapped it in, he checked the existing board and found no problems with it.
   • 20mV input signal, 100 Hz was injected into the two REFL55 channels on the whitening board.
   • The flat whitening gain was set to +45 dB.
   • The signal levels seen in CDS was consistent with what is expected given an ADC conversion factor of 3276.8 cts/V.
2. Tried putting the REFL55 demodulated outputs into the next two channels, 5&6, (currently unused) on the same whitening board.
   • After setting the whitening gains of these two channels also to +18dB, the saturation of the ADCs when the PRMI was fringing persisted.
3. With the dark noise of the whitening filter, we enabled/disabled the on board frequency dependent whitening, and reasoned that the time domain increase in RMS seemed reasonable. So we decided to investigate parts of the electronics chain upstream of the whitening board, since we couldn't find anything obviously wrong with the whitening board.
4. Injected -10dBm RF signal (=0.2 Vpp) into the RF input on the REFL55 demod board, and saw ~3500 cts-pp signal in CDS. This is totally consistent with my recent characterization of 16,000 cts/V for this demod board at the "nominal" + 18dB whitening gain setting. So the demodulator seems to function as advertised.
5. Decided to repeat my test of using the Jenne laser to test the whole chain end-to-end.
   • In summary, we recovered the results (RF transimpedance of the PD, and signal levels in CDS for a known AM determined by the reference NF1611 PD) I reported there.
   • So it would seem that the entire REFL55 electronics chain performs as expected.
   • The only remaining explanation is that the optical gain of the PRMI has increased - but how?? 
   • Similar jumps in the REFL55 signal levels have occurred multiple times in the past, and each time, I was able to recover the "nominal" performance by this procedure (though I have no idea why that should work at all).
   • So I am highly skeptical that this has anything to do with the IFO optical gain, but that is the only difference between our AM laser based test and the "live" operating conditions when the signals are saturated.

Discussion and next steps:

Q: Koji asked me what is the problem with this apparent increased optical gain - can't we just compensate by decreasing the whitening gain?
A: I am unable to transition control of the PRMI (no ETMs) from 3f to 1f, even after reducing the whitening gain on the REFL55 channels to prevent the saturation. So I think we need to get to the bottom of whatever the problem is here.

Q: Why do we need to transfer the control of the vertex to the 1f signals at all?
A: I haven't got a plot in the elog, but from when I had the PRFPMI locked last year, the DARM noise between 100-1kHz had high coherence with the MICH control signal. I tried some feedforward to try and cancel it but never got anywhere. It isn't a quantitative statement but the 1f signals are expected to be cleaner?

Koji pointed out that the MICH signal is visible in the REFL55 channels even when the PRM is misaligned, so I'm gonna look back at the trend data to see if I can identify when this apparent increase in the signal levels occurred and if I can identify some event in the lab that caused it. We also discussed using the ratio of MICH signals in REFL and AS to better estimate the losses in the REFL path - the Faraday losses in particular are a total unknown, but in the AS path, there is less uncertainty since we know the SRM transmission quite precisely, and I guess the 6 output steering mirrors can be assumed to be R=99%. 

Summary:

Today I tried debugging the mysterious increase in REFL55 signal levels in the DRMI configuration. I focused on the demod board, because last week, I had tried routing these signals through different channels on the whitening board, and saw the same effect. 

Based on my tests, everything on the Demod board seems to work as expected. I need to think more about what else could be happening here - specifically do a more direct test on the whitening board.

Details:

• The demod board is a modified D990511 (marked up schematic + high-res photo to follow).
• Initially, I tried probing the LO signal levels at various points with the board in the eurocrate itself, with the help of an extender card.
• But this wasn't very convenient, so I pulled the board out to the office area for more testing.
• The 55MHz LO signal going into the board is ~0dBm (measured with Agilent network analyzer)
• I used the active probe to check the LO levels at various points along the signal chain, which mostly consists of attenuators, ERA-5SM amplifiers, and some splitters/phase rotators.
• Everything seemed consistent with the expected levels based on "typical" numbers for gains and insertion losses cited in the datasheets for these devices.
• I couldn't directly measure the level at the LO input to the mixer, but measuring the input to the ERA-5SM immediately before the mixer, barring problems with this amplifier, the LO input of the mixer is being driven at >17dBm which is what it wants.
• Next, I decided to check the gain, gain imbalance and orthogonality of the demodulation.
• For this purpose, I restored the board to the Eurocrate, reconnected the LO input to the board, and used a second Marconi at a slightly offset frequency to drive the PD input at ~0dBm.
• Attachment #1 - The measured outputs look pretty balanced and orthogonal. The gain is consistent with an earlier measurement I made some months ago, when things were "normal". More bullets added after Rana's questions:
  • 300 MHz bandwidth oscilloscope used to acquire the data
  • I and Q outputs were from the daughter board
  • Data was acquired via ethernet data download utility
  • 20 MHz low-pass filter turned on on the Oscilloscope while downloading the data

All connections have been restored untill further debugging later in the evening.

I don't have a good explanation why, but I too measured similar numbers to what Koji measured. The overall conversion gain for this board (including the +20dB gain from the daughter board) was measured to be ~5.3 V/V on the bench, and ~16000 cts/V in the CDS system (100Hz offset from the LO frequency). It would appear that the effective JMS-1-H conversion loss is <2dB. Seems fishy, but I can't find anything else obviously wrong with the circuit (e.g. a pre-amp for the RF signal that I missed, there is none).

I also attach the result of the measured noise at the outputs of the daughter board (i.e. what is digitized by the ADC), see Attachment #2. Apart from the usual forest of lines of unknown origin, there is still a significant excess above the voltage noise of the OP27, which is expected to be the dominant noise source in this configuration. Neverthelesss, considering that we have only 40dB of whitening gain, it is not expected that we see this noise directly in the digitized signal (above the ADC noise of ~1uV/rtHz). Note that the measured noise today, particularly for the Q channel,  is significantly lower than before the changes were made. 

There were multiple problems with the REFL55 demod board. I fixed them and re-installed the board. The TFs and noise measured on the bench now look more like what is expected from a noise model. The noise in-situ also looked good. After this work, my settings for the PRMI sideband lock don't work anymore so I probably have to tweak things a bit, will look into it tomorrow.

After this work, I measured that the orthogonality was poor. I confirmed on the bench that the PQW-2-90 was busted, pin 2 (0 degree output) showed a sensible signal half of the input, but pin 6 had far too small an output and the phase difference was more like 45 degrees and not 90 degrees. I can't find any spares of this part in the lab - however, we do have the equivalent part used in the aLIGO demodulator. Koji has kindly agreed to do the replacement (it requires a bit of jumper wiring action because the pin mapping between the two parts isn't exactly identical - in fact, the circuit schematic uses a transformer to do the splitting, but at some unknown point in time, the change to the minicircuits part was made. Anyway, until this is restored, I defer the PRMI sideband locking.

A new hybrid splitter (DQS-10-100) was installed. As the amplification of the final stage is sufficient for the input level of 3dBm, I have bypassed the input amplification (Attachment 1). One of the mixer was desoldered to check the power level. With a 1dB ATTN, the output of the last ERA-5 was +17.8dBm (Attachment 2). (The mixer was resoldered.)

With LO3dBm. RF0dBm, and delta_f = 30Hz, the output Vpp of 340mV and the phase difference is 88.93deg. (Attachment 3/4, the traces were averaged)

0 dBm ~ 0.63 Vpp. I guess there is ~4dB total loss (3dB from splitter and 1dB from total excess loss above theoretical from various components) between the SMA input and each RF input of the JMS-1-H mixer, which has an advertised conversion loss of ~6dB. So the RF input to each mixer, for 0dBm to the front panel SMA is ~-4dBm (=0.4 Vpp), and the I/F output is 0.34Vpp. So the conversion loss is only ~-1.5 dB? Seems really low? I assume the 0.34 Vpp is at the input to the preamp? If it's after the preamp, then the numbers still don't add up, because with the nominal 6dB conversion loss, the output. should be ~2Vpp? I will check it later.

Missed to note: The IF test was done at TP7 and TP6 using pomona clips i.e. brefore the preamp.

The attached plot shows that also the behaviour of the REFL11 and 55 signals is qualitatively equal to the simulation outcome.

Beautiful double peaks. I don't see the triple zero-crossings. Is this because you adjusted the phase correctly (as predicted)?

Don't you want to have a positive number for POP22? Should we set the demod phase in the configuration script for the positive POP22, shouldn't we?

All the details and data will be included in the wiki page (and so also the results for AS55). Here I just show the comparison of the transfer functions that I measured and that I modeled.

I applied an approximate calibration to the data so that all the measurements would refer to the transfer function of Vout / PD Photocurrent. Here's how they look like. (also the calibration will be explained in the wiki)

.

The ratio between the amplitude of the 55Mhz modulation over the 11MHz is ~ 90dB

The electronics TF doesn't provide a faithful reproduction of the optical response.

REFL55 has been installed on the AP table.  REFL11 has been moved to make space for a 50% beam splitter. The reflected beam from this splitter is about 30% of the transmitted beam power.  The reflected beam goes to REFL11 in the current configuration.  The DC levels are 1.2V on REFL 11 and 3.5V on the REFL55.

I redid some of the cabling on the table because the we need to choose the heliax cables such that they end up close to the demod board location.  As per the 1Y2 (LSC) rack layout given here, some of the PD signals have to arrive at the top and others at the bottom of the LSC rack.

Currently the PDs are connected as follows:

REFL11 PD --> Heliax (ASDD133) (arriving at the top of LSC rack) --> REFL11 Demod Board 

REFL55 PD --> Heliax (REFL166) (arriving at the top of LSC rack) --> AS55 Demod Board

AS55 PD --> Heliax (AS166) (arriving at the top of the LSC rack) --> not connected.

We are waiting for the Minicircuits parts to modify the rest of the demod boards.

The heliax cables arriving at the LSC rack are not yet fixed properly.  I hope to get this done with Steve's help today.

As the POP55 demod board is actually demodulating the REFL55 signal, I have connected its outputs to the REFL55 ADC inputs. Now, we can go back to using the REFL55 input matrix elements, and the data will be recorded. 

I have changed the relevant lines in the locking script to reflect this change. 

Following was done to investigate 60 Hz noise issue, but no significant change in the FPMI noise observed.


REFL55 inspection:
  - Even before BH44 installation, we have been experiencing flaky REFL55 RF output. When some work was done at AP table or something, sometimes the amplitude of REFL55_I and REFL55_Q goes very low, and/or offset changes. This was usually fixed by touching the RF output of REFL55.
  - So, we took out REFL55 and opened the back lid to inspect. RF output seemed rigid and the SMA connector was properly grounded to the box; didn't find any issue (Attachment #1).
  - REFL55 was put back to its original position, and the cables were also put back.

BH44 Kapton tape:
  - I realized that other RFPDs have Kapton tape in between the RFPD golden box and the black mount, but not for BH44 we recently installed.
  - I have checked that the golden box of BH44 and the optical table is not grounded when RF output and the DB15 cable was disconnected, but is gounded when they are connected, just like BH55.
  - Anyway I removed BH44 and put a Kapton tape (Attachment #2), just in case, and BH44 was put back to its original position, and the cables were also put back.

FPMI noise spectra after the work:
  - Attachment #3,4,5 are noise spectra of FPMI BHD sensors when FPMI is RF locked with AS55_Q, REFL55_I, and REFL55_Q, and LO_PHASE is locked with BH55 with the following configurations.
  - Attachment #3: whitening/unwhitening filters for AS55, REFL55, POX11, POY11, BH55, BH44 turned on (nominal configuration after lock acquisition)
  - Attachment #4: whitening/unwhitening filters for AS55, REFL55, POX11, POY11, BH55, BH44 turned off. No significant change except for expected whitening filter transfer function.
  - Attachment #5: whitening/unwhitening filters for AS55, REFL55, POX11, POY11, BH55, BH44 turned on, 30 dB resonant gain at 60 Hz, Q=10 in CARM loop. Significant 60 Hz reduction everywhere. This was not observed when resonant gain at 60 Hz was put in DARM loop (only 60 Hz at AS55_Q was reduced). 60 Hz noise mainly coming from something in CARM loop?

Don't forget to:
  - Put a beam dump for BH44

Kapton tape is a good insulator, so its a good block for 60 Hz. But it is mostly useless for RF since the capacitance between the mount and the table is

C = epsilon * A / d

For Kapton the dielectric constant is 3.5, the PD mount area is 10 cm x 10 cm, and the film thickness is ~50 um. So C ~ 5 nF.

Z ~ 1 / (2 * pi * 44 MHz) / C

  ~ 0.5 Ohms

[rana,gautam]

We did an ingenious checkup of the whitening board tonight.

• The board is D990694
• We made use of a tip-tilt DAC channel for this test (specifically TT1 UL, which is channel 1 on the AI board). We disconnected the cable going from the AI board to the TT coil driver board.
  • as opposed to using a function generator to drive the whitening filter, this approach allows us to not have to worry the changing offsets as we switch the whitening gain.
  • By using the CDS system to generate the signal and also demodulate it, we also don't have to worry about the drive and demod frequencies falling out of sync with each other.
• The test was done by injecting a low frequency (75.13 Hz, amplitude=0.1) excitation to this DAC channel, and using the LSC sensing matrix infrastructure to demodulate REFL55 I and Q at this frequency. Demod phases in these servos were adjusted such that the Q phase demodulated signal was minimized.
• An excitation was injected using awggui into TT1 UL exc channel.
• We then stepped the whitening gains for REFL55_I and REFL55_Q in 3dB steps, waiting 5 seconds for each step. Syntax is z step -s 5 C1:LSC-REFL55_I_WhiteGain +1.0,15 C1:LSC-REFL55_Q_WhiteGain +1.0,15
• Attachment #1 suggests that the whitening filter board is working as expected (each step is indeed 3dB and all steps are equal to the eye).
• Data + script used to generate this plot is in Attachment #2.

I've restored all connections at that we messed with at the LSC rack to their original positions.

The TT alignment seems to be drifting around more than usual after we disconnected one of the channels - when I came in today afternoon, the spot on the AS camera had drifted by ~1 spot diameter so I had to manually re-align TT1. 

I repeated the usual whitening board characterization test of:

• driving a signal (using awggui) into the two inputs of the whitening board using a spare DAC channel available in 1Y2
• demodulating the response using the LSC sensing matrix infrastructure
• Stepping the whitening gain, incrementing it in 3dB steps, and checking if the demodulated lock-in outputs increase in the expected 3dB steps.

Attachment #1 suggests that the steps are equal (3dB) in size, but note that the "Q" channel shows only ~half the response of the I channel. The drive is derived from a channel of an unused AI+dewhite board in 1Y2, split with a BNC Tee, and fed to the two inputs on the whitening filter. The impedance is expected to be the same on each channel, and so each channel should see the same signal, but I see a large asymmetry. All of this checked out a couple of weeks ago (since we saw ellipses and not circles) so not sure what changed in the meantime, or if this is symptomatic of some deeper problem.

Usually, doing this and then restoring the cabling returns the signal levels of REFL55 to nominal levels. Today it did not - at the nominal whitening gain setting of +18dB flat gain, when the PRMI is fringing, the REFL55 inputs are frequently reporting ADC overflows. Needless to say, all my attempts today evening to transition the length control of the vertex from REFL165 to REFL55 failed.

I suppose we could try shifting the channels to (physical) Ch5 and Ch6 which were formerly used to digitize the ALS DFD outputs and are currently unused (from Ch3, Ch4) on this whitening filter and see if that improves the situation, but this will require a recompile of the RTCDS model and consequent CDS bootfest, which I'm not willing to undertake today. If anyone decides to do this test, let's also take the opportunity to debug the BIO switching for the delay line.

This problem has re-surfaced. Is this indicative of some problem with the on-board VGA? Even with 0dB of whitening gain, I see PDH horns that are 10,000 ADC counts in amplitude, whereas the nominal whitening gain for this channel is +18dB. I'll look at it in the daytime, not planning to use REFL55 for any locking tonight.

Last night after checking cabling and turning on ISS, we tried several times to handoff to REFL_DC but it didn't work at all.

Some issues:

1. The ISS was injecting a lot of very low frequency power fluctuations because of bad AC coupling.
2. The SR560 @ LSC rack was saturating a lot with the x10 gain that Jenne and Rana put in; we turned it back to G = 1.
3. The ISS was also saturating a lot. We turned it off around 4 AM, but still no success.
4. The ALS sequence for finding the Red Resonance takes too long (~2 minutes), so we're trying a faster scheme tonight.

 Still no success tonight

• We took CARM OLTFs at various CARM offsets and could clearly see the peak in the optical TF (in once case ~2.5kHz), which gave us an indication of our offset (~200pm)
• REFLDC effectively sees the same plant TF as the transmission signals plus a zero at ~110 Hz, at all offsets under 1nm, from my simulations; this pushes up the optical resonance and causes a loop instability when we try to handoff. 
• We need to make the CARM OLTF steeper to suppress this instability, but also to make a good crossover with the AO path, which otherwise has too similar of a slope around the UGF, as we saw with our one arm test. 
• We're thinking of trying to turn the AO path on with REFLDC while keeping the arms on SQRTINV signals. This may be tricky, but if we can get the loop bandwidth above the optical peak, it'll be a lot easier to deal with, and transfer digital control to REFLDC as well. 

My previous eigenfrequency analysis was incorrect by two orders of magnitude due to the misuse of Young's Modulus information for Viton. After editing this parameter (as documented on 7/14 19:00), the eigenmodes became much more reasonable. I also discovered the Deformation option under the Surface Plotting Options, which makes the eigenmodes of the single stack much more apparant.

Attached are pictures of the first four eigenmodes:

First Eigenmode: y-translational, 7.49 Hz

Second Eigenmode: x-translational, 7.55 Hz

Third Eigenmode: z-rotational, 8.63 Hz

Fourth Eigenmode: z-translational, 18.26 Hz

Today I measured the max output power at the EOM output of one of the RF AM Stabilizers that we use to control the modulation depth. I needed to know that number for the designing of the new RF system.

When the EPICS slider of the 166 MHz modulation depth is at 0 the modulation depth is max (the slider's values are reversed : 0 is max, 5 is min; it is also 0 for any value above 5, sepite it range from 0 to 10).

I measured 9.5V from the EOM output, that is 32 dBm on a 50 Ohm impedance.

[johannes, gautam]

We pulled out the RF AM stabilization box from the 1X2 rack. PSL shutter was closed, marconi output, RF distribution box and RF AM stabilization box were turned off in that order. We had to remove the 4 rack nut screws on the RF distribution box because of the stiff cables which prevented the RF AM stabilization box extraction. I've left the marconi output and the RF distribution boxes off, and have terminated all open SMA connections with 50 ohm terminators just in case. Rack nuts for RF distribution box have been removed, it is currently sitting on a metal plate that is itself screwed onto the rack. I deemed this a stable enough ledge for the box to sit on in the short run, while we debug the RF AM stabilization box. We will work on the debugging and re-install the box as soon as we are done...

[gautam, Lydia]

We looked at the RF AM stabilizer box to see if we could find out 1) Why the output power is so low, and 2) Why it can't be changed with the DC input "MOD CONT IN." Details to follow, attached is the annotated schematic from DCC document D000037. 

We are not returning the box tonight so the PSL shutter remains closed. 

1. What is the probe situation? Ought to use a high impedance FET probe to measure this or else the scope would load the circuit.
2. The ERA amplifiers are known to slowly die over ~10 year times scales. Search our ELOG for ERA-5. We'll have to replace some; ask Steve to order if we don't have many in the Plateau Tournant.
3. What kind of HELA are the HELA amplifiers? Please a link to the data sheet if you can find it. I wonder what the gain and NF are at 30 MHz. I think the HELA-10D should be a good variant.

> What is the probe situation? Ought to use a high impedance FET probe to measure this or else the scope would load the circuit.

We did indeed use the active probe, with the 100:1 attenuator in place. The values Lydia has quoted have 40dB added to account for this.

> What kind of HELA are the HELA amplifiers? Please a link to the data sheet if you can find it. I wonder what the gain and NF are at 30 MHz. I think the HELA-10D should be a good variant

The HELA is marked as HELA-10. It doesn't have the '+' suffix but according to the datasheet, it seems like it is just not RoHS compliant. It isn't indicated which of the varieties (A-D) is used either on the schematic or the IC, only B and D are 50ohms. For all of them, the typical gain is 11-12dB, and NF of 3.5dB.

[rana, gautam, lydia]

Today we looked at the schematics for the RF AM stabilizer box and decided that there were an unnecessary amount of attenuators and amplifiers cancelling each other out and adding noise. At the end of the path are 2 HELA-10D amplifiers which we guessed based on the plots for the B version would have an acceptable amount of compression if the output of the second one is ~27dBm. This means the input to the first one should be a few dBm. This should be achieved with as simple a path as possible.

This begged the question, do we need the amplitude to be stabilized at all? Maybe it's good enough already when it comes into this box from the RF distribution box. So I tried to measure the AM noise of the 29.5 MHz signal that usually goes into the AM stabilizer:

• I first measured the power to be 12.8 dBm with the AG4395.
• I sent the signal through a splitter, then sent one side attenuated by 3 dB to the LO side of a level 7 mixer, and the other side attenuated by 10 dB to the RF side of the mixer.
• The output of the mixer went through a lowpass filter at 1.9 MHz (with a 50Ω inline terminator). Initially I connected this directly to a DAQ channel (C1:ALS-FC_X_F_IN), but the ADC noise was stronger than the AM signal.
• To fix this I used the SR560, AC coupled with a gain of 10^4. Attachment 1 is a spectrum of the noise measured with everything connected as described, and also for separate portions of the signal chain:
  • I measured the ADC noise by connecting a terminator to the cable going to DAQ.
  • I measured the mixer noise by putting a terminator on the RF input (and the end of the cable that was connected to it), while still driving LO.
  • I measured the SR560 noise by putting a terminator on the input.

It seems like I'm getting mostly noise from the SR560. Maybe it would be better to use an SR785 to take data instead of DAQ, and then skip the SR560? At low frequencies it seems like the AM noise measurement may be actually meaningful. In any case, if the actual AM noise from the crystal is lower than any of these other noise sources, it means we probably don't need to stabilize the amplitude with a servo, which means we can simplify the AM stabilizer board considerably to just amplify what it gets to 27 dBm.

For a comparison: OMC ELOG 238

I've added the schematic of the RF AM stabilization board to the 40m PSL document tree, after having created a new DCC document for our 40m edits. Pictures of the board before and after modification will also be uploaded here...

Here's what I'm planning to do to the RF AM stabilizer box. I'm going to take out several of the components along the path to the EOM (comments in green), including the dead ERA-4 and ERA-5 amplifiers, the variable attenuator which is controlled by a switch that can't be accessed outside the box, and the feedback path from the daughter board servo. I'm arranging things so that the output of the HELA-10 does not exceed the maximum output power. 

I wasn't quite as sure what to do about the path to the ASC box (comments in blue). I talked with Gautam and he said this gets split equally between several singals, one of which goes to the LO of the demod board which expects -10 dBm and currently gets -12 dBm (can go up to -8 by turning switch). So maybe we don't actually want the signal to be anywhere near +27 dBm at the output. The plans for the box are here, it looks like +27 in will end up with +10 at each output, which is way more than what's currently coming out. But maybe this needs to be increased to match the other path? 

Also we haven't measured the actual response of the variable attenuator U4 for various switch positions; it's the same model as the one I'm removing from the EOM path and that one had slightly different behavior for different switch positions than what the spec sheet says. Same goes for the HELA-10 units along this path: what is their actual gain? So perhaps these should be measured and then a single attenuator should be chosen to get the right output signal level. Alternatively it could just be left alone, if it is at an OK level right now. Advice on what to do here would be appreciated.  

I'll work on the EOM path tonight and wait for feedback on the rest of it. 

EDIT: Gautam pointed out that there's some insertion loss from the components I'll be removing that hasn't been accounted for. Also the plans have been updated to reflect that I'm replacing AT5 with a 1dB attenuator (from 6 dB). 

I suggest:

1. Disable the path which goes to the two spare outputs. Replace the ERA-5 with a 50 Ohm resistor to terminate that path. Make sure the ERA bias voltage is not shorting into something.
2. Remove the ERA amps from the ASC path and remove the switch. Make it fixed gain such that we get +27 dBm out of the front.
3. Put the ASC output into the 1U multi-splitter box and attenuate those outputs so that they supply ~0 dBm to the 2 WFS and the LSC Demod board.

I think this then allows us to have the low noise OCXO signals everywhere with enough oomph.

I made some of the changes. Gautam and I will finish tomorrow. 

While I was soldering the sharpest tip of the soldering iron (the one whose power supply shows the temperature) stopped working and I switched to a different one. Not sure how to fix this. 

Do we want to replace all of the removed ERA's with 50 Ohm resistors, or just the one along the spare output path? I shorted one of them with a piece of wire and left all the others open. 

I couldn't get one of the attenuators off (AT1, at beginning of ASC path). In trying I messed up the solder pad. Part of the connecting trace on the PCB board is exposed so we should be able to fix it. 

After Steve pointed out the 'deep hoop' issue, we decided to examine putting an RF Amp on the PSL table, between the RF combiner and the triple resonant box.

This will reduce the chances of standing waves in the cables and reduce the radiation induced pick-up in the RF PD and Demod electronics.

We would like to send ~10 dBm from the distribution box to the combiner. We also want to able to get as much as ~33 dBm of drive at 11 and 55 MHz. So the amp should have a gain of ~20-30 dB and an operating range of 10-100 MHz.

Also desirable are low distortion (high IP3) and good reverse isolation ( > 40 dB).

Some possibilities so far (please add your RF Google Results here):

1) Mini-Circuits ZHL-1-2W-S:  G = +32 dB, Max Out = +33 dBm, NF = 6 dB, Directivity = 25 dB

2) Mini-Circuits TIA-1000-1R8:  G=+40 dB, Max Out = +36 dBm, NF = 15 dB   (AC Powered, Inst. Amp), Directivity = 58 dB.

3) Mini-Circuits ZHL-2-8: G = +27dB, Max out = +29 dBm, NF = 6dB, Directivity = 32 dB

4) RFbay MPA-10-40: G = +40dB, Max Out = + 30 dBm, NF = 3.3 dB, Rev Iso = 23 dB

5) No proper stuff from Teledyne Couger

By looking at what Daniel used in the low noise EOM Driver for aLIGO, we found the A2CP2596 from Cougar.

G = +24 dB, NF = 5 dB, Max Out = +37 dBm. It comes in a 2-stage SMA connector package. I've asked Steve to order 2 of them with the appropriate heatsinks.

I have installed a ZFL-500LN on the RF output of POY11. This should reduce the effect of the CM board voltage offsets by increasing the size of the error signal coming into the board. Checking with an oscilloscope at the LSC rack, the single arm PDH peak to peak voltage was something like 4mV, now it is something like 80mV. 

The setup is similar to the REFL165 situation, but with the amplifier in proximity with the PD, instead of at the end of a long cable at the LSC rack. 

The PD RF output is T'd between an 11MHz minicircuits bandpass filter and a 50 Ohm terminator (which makes sure that signals outside of the filter's passband don't get reflected back into the PD). The output of the filter is connected directly to the input of the ZFL-500LN, which is powered (temporarily) by picking off the +15V from the PD interface cable via Dsub15 breakout. (I say temporarily, as Koji is going to pick out some fancy pi-filter feedthrough which we can use to make a permanent power terminal on the PD housing.)

The max current draw of this amplifier is 60mA. Gazing at the LSC interface (D990543), I think the +15V on the DSUB cable is being passed from the eurocard crate; I don't see any 15V regulator, so maybe this is ok...

The free swinging PDH signal looked clean enough on a scope. Jamie is doing stuff with the framebuilder, so I can't look at spectra right now. However, turning the POY whitening gain down to +18dB from +45dB lets the Y arm lock on POY with all other settings nominal, which is about what we expect from the nominal +23dB gain of the amplifier.

I would see CM board offsets of ~5mV before, which was more a little more than a linewidth before this change. Now it will be 5% of that, and hopefully more manageable.

[Steve, Suresh]

We started to clean up the RF cables (heliax and PD interface cables)  at the LSC rack.

We have pulled out all the RF cables from the small hole on the side-board close to floor.  Passing the cables through this hole makes some of the cables much too short for good strain relief.  So we removed the side panel on the vacuum tube side and are going to pass the cables into the rack from there at about waist height.  We now have plenty of cable lengths to tie them off to the rack at several points.

We have traced all the available Heliax cables and have attached blank tags to them.  We have allocated some cables to REFL11, REFL55 and AS55.  These are therefore back in working order.  We have also taken stock of the available PD interface cables.  They do not have consistent names on both ends of the cable and we will identify and label the ends tomorrow.

MC is locked.  The auto-locker works fine.

Handing over the system for night time interferometer work now.  Will continue with the cabling tomorrow.

The Distribution box is several steps nearer to completion.

1) Soldered capacitors and DC power lines for four units of the distribution box.

2) mounted all the components in their respective places.

3) Tomorrow we prepare the RF cables and that is the last step of the mechanical assembly. 

4) we plan to test both the generator and distributon parts together.

REFL 11

[Kevin, Suresh]

Kevin took a transfer function of the newly assembled PD and noticed that the frequency has shifted to 14.99  freom 11. MHz.

We needed to find the current RLC combination.  So we  removed the ferrite core from L5 rendiring it to its aircore value of  0.96/muH. We then used this to find the Capacitance of the PD (117pF)

We  used this value to compute the inductance required to achieve 11.065MHz  which turned out to be 1.75microH.

This was not reachable with the current L5 which is of the type  143-20J12L (nominal H=1.4 micro Henry).

We therefore changed the inductor to SLOT 10 -3-03. It is a ferrite core, shielded inductor with a plasitc sleeve. Its nomial valie is 1.75 microH

We then tested the DC output to see if here is a response to light. There was nonel. l

The problem was traced to the new inductor.  Surprisingly the inductor coil had lost contact with the pins.

I then replacd the inductor and checked again.  The elecronics seems to work okay..   but there is a very small signal 0.8mV for 500microW. 

There seems to be still something wrong with the PD or its electronics.

RF Distribution box has been mounted in the 1Y2 rack and is ready for use.

The box receives 11 and 55 MHz Demod Signals from the RF source located in the 1X2 rack.