for the vertical beam profile:

reduced chi^2 = 3.28

x0 = (-87 ± 1) mm

w0 = (32.59 ± 27) µm

for the horizontal beam profile

reduced chi^2 = 2.02

x0 = (-82 ± 1) mm

w0 = (32.23 ± 20) µm

In the following plots * denotes vertical data points and + denotes horizontal data points. The blue curve is the fit to the vertical data and the purple curve is the fit to the horizontal data.

 My job right now is to characterize the green PDH loops on each arm. Today, Jenne took me around and pointed at the optics and electronics involved. She then showed me how to lock the green beams to the arms (i.e. opening the shutters until you hit a TM00 shape on the transmitted beam camera). Before lunch, the y arm was easiest to lock, and the transmitted power registered at around 0.75. 

After lunch, I took a laptop and SR785 down to the y end station. I unhooked the PDH electronics and took a TF of the servo (without its boost engaged, which is how it is currently running) and noise spectrum with the servo input terminated.

I then set up things a la ELOG 8817 to try and measure the OLTF. However, at this point, getting the beam to lock on a TM00 (or something that looked like it) was kind of tough. Also, the transmitted power was quite a bit less than earlier (~0.35ish), and some higher order modes were higher than that (~0.5). Then, when I would turn on the SR785 excitation, lock would be lost shortly into the measurement, and the data that was collected looked like nonsense. Later, Koji noted that intermittent model timeouts were moving the suspensions, thus breaking the lock. 

We then tried to lock the x arm green, to little success. Koji came to the conclusion that the green input pointing was not very good, as the TM00 would flash much less brightly than some of the much higher order modes. 

Tomorrow, I will measure the x arm OLTF, as it doesn't face the same timeout issue that is affecting the y arm.

Yesterday, made a slew of measurements on the X-arm when locked on green. By tweaking the temperature loop offset and the green input PZT pointing, I was able to get the transmitted green to around 1.0. The PDH board gain was set to 4.0. I had trouble making swept sine measurements of the OLTF; changing the excitation amplitude for different frequency ranges would result in discontinuities in the measured TF, and there was only a pretty narrow band around the UGF that seemed to have reasonable coherence.

So, I used the SR785 as a broadband noise generator and measured the TF via dividing the spectra in regions of coherence. Specifically, I used the "pink noise" option of the SR785. I also used a SR560 as a low pass to get enough noise injected into the lower frequency range to be coherent, while not injecting so much into the higher frequencies that the mode hopped while measuring. 

The servo board TF was easily fitted to a 4th order zpk model via VFIT, but I'm having trouble fitting the OLTF. (There is a feature in the servo TF that I didn't fit. This is a feature that Zach saw [ELOG 9537], and attributed to op amp instability) Plots follow. Also, while these need to be calibrated to show the real noise spectrum of the cavity motion, I'm attaching the voltage noise spectra of the error and control signals as a check that electronics/PD noise isn't dominating either signal. 

From EricQ's simulations reported in elog 10390, we want to transition from ALS comm to DC transmission signals around 500 pm.  However, around 100 pm, the DC transmission signals have a sign flip, so we don't want to have the ALS swing that close to the CARM resonance.  So.  We want to be at about 500 pm, and not touch 100 pm.  So, we don't want our peak ALS motion to go beyond ~400 pm.  Which means that we need to have less than about 40 pm in-loop RMS, to avoid hitting 400 pm.  This is an ALS requirement, but since the analog PDH box is what forces the end laser to follow the arm cavity, and thus give us information about the arm length fluctuations, the PDH residual noise is part of our sensor noise for the full ALS.  So, we need to have the PDH in-loop RMS be less than 40 pm, integrated from a few kHz down to at least 30 mHz. Recall that above the ALS UGF (of about 200 Hz), the sensor noise will be suppressed by 1/f, so we should take that into account when we are looking at the PDH error signal, before we calculate the RMS motion.

Q also measured the in-loop error signal with the current Yend PDH box in elog 10430, and it looks like most of the RMS is coming from a few hundred Hz.  I designed a hack to the PDH board boost that has a zero at about 2kHz, and a gain of 30 at DC, so that we will win by squishing all that RMS.  Also, it shouldn't be too aggressive, so we should be able to leave it on all the time, and still acquire lock of the green laser to the arm, without having to do triggering.

The board schematic is at DCC D1400294.  The boost is also called the "integrator stage", although it will no longer be a simple integrator.

EDIT, JCD:  This cartoon is not correct for the non-boosted state, doesn't include effect of R16.

Okay, went back to the drawing board with Rana and Koji on PDH box stuff.

Currently (at least for the Yend), in the boost OFF state, we have an overall gain of about 50.  This is crazy big.  Also, the zero in the "transfer function stage" is around 1kHz, however our green cavity pole is (calculated) to be around 20 kHz.  Since these are supposed to cancel but they're not, we have a wide weird flat region in our loop TF.

So.  I calculated the changes to the TF stage that I'll need so that I have an increase of about 20 in DC gain, kept the pole at the same ~20Hz, but moved the zero way out to 18kHz.  I also calculated the changes needed for the integrator stage to make it effective at much higher frequency than it was designed for.  Now the pole is at 75 Hz, and the zero will be at 1.6kHz, and the high frequency gain will stay pretty close to the same with and without the boost.

Planned new TF stage:

Planned boost stage (with and without boost activated):

New boost stage only, so you can see the phase:

The schematic, modified to show my planned changes (which I will put in the DCC after I make the changes):

Jenne made her board modifications, and the measured TF agreed with the design. Alas, the green would not lock to the arm in this state. 

I think that the reason is that the new TF does not have nearly as much low frequency gain as the old one, for a given UGF. Thus, for example, the 1Hz noise due to the pendulum resonance, has 30dB less loop gain suppressing it. 

NEED MORE 

As EricQ mentioned in last night's elog, the modifications were made to the Yend (SN 17) uPDH board.

R31 became 49.9 Ohms, R30 became 45.3kOhm, R24 became 1.02k, R16 became 1k, a new flying resistor is tombstoned up against R24 and connected by purple wire to C6 and it is 20k.  C28 is 183nF and C6 is 100nF.  These numbers were used in Q's simulation last night.

[Rana, Jenne, EricQ]

* Too much gain overall on Yend box, needed attenuator on output to get lock.  Rethought gain allocation.  Resoldered board, installed, Ygreen locks nicely.  Error point and control point spectra, box TF and open loop TF data collected, to be plotted.

* Q replaced the Xend box, with a matching TF.

* Locked both arms individually, Yend has lots of low freq fluctuation, Xend has some.  Can't do out of loop measurement since we're going well beyond the range of the PDH signals (Yarm RIN is between 1/2 and 1.) Plot TRX and TRY spectra with ALS lock vs. IR lock to get an idea of what frequencies we have a problem with.

* Tried comm/diff locking anyway.  Works.  Used cm_up script to get CARM to sqrtInvTrans.  Went to powers of about 0.5 (hard to say really, because of fluctuations), put sine at 611.1 Hz, 200 cts onto ETMs (-1*x, +1*y), looked at TF between ALS diff and AS55Q.  Put that amount into the static power normalization spot for AS55.  In steps of 0.1, reduced ALSdiff input matrix elements and increased AS55->DARM element.  2 (3?) times was able to get to AS55Q for DARM.  Lost lock once unknown reason, while reducing CARM offset.  Lost lock once trying to turn on FM4 LSC boost for DARM.

TRX/TRY spectra:

The 2F product out of the mixer is a natural concern when demodulating. However, I think this isn't so big of a deal in our green PDH servos; 420kHz isn't so high of a frequency that the servo amplifiers are bandwidth or slew-rate limited. Furthermore, the amplitude of this line is supressed by the loop somewhat, since it arises from the same field product that the loop is acting on. Measuring the Y end mixer output with a high impedance probe and the AG4395 shows it to be something like -50dBm. 

In fact, the main thing that the pomona LPFs are accomplishing right now is filtering the 1F content of the mixer output that arises from the second order sideband creating a signal at 2F, and beating with the LO at (2F-1F)=1F. This line is something like -30dBm (5mVrms) at the mixer output; I can reproduce this amplitude with a back-of-the envelope calculation using a modulation depth of 0.3, 8V out of the PD at DC when unlocked, the mixer datasheet, and the nominal cavity parameters. 

The nice thing about this is that we don't need to filter this after the mixer, we can use a [bandpass/lowpass/notch] filter before the mixer (as is done in the LSC demod boards) to filter out the 2F (420kHz) content of the PD signal, which will only introduce some small amount of linear time delay to the PDH loop, instead of the wicked phase loss from the current post-mixer LPF. We can then replace that 70kHz filter with something of lower order or higher corner frequency to win a good deal of phase in the PDH loop. 

OK - but give us a circuit diagram and the expected before/after loop plots. Got to make sure we keep the right impedance from PD to mixer. Some of the Thorlabs PDs have a 50 Ohm instead of 0 Ohm source impedance. Maybe you can try it out now since the green arm is ready.

We can get as much, if not more, attenuation of the 1F line in the mixer output that we get from the post-mixer LPF from using the following passive filter between the PD and mixer RF input:

There should still be some kind of LPF after the mixer, but I haven't yet determined what it should be; this will determine how much phase the PDH loop wins. At most, this should win around 25 degrees at 10kHz.

The filter was designed by referencing the "Handbook of Filter Synthesis" by Zverev, looking for an elliptic filter for matched source and load impedences, 40dB min attenuation in the stopband, a stopband frequency that starts at twice the corner frequency, and minimizing the VSWR between the PD and filter in the passband.

In terms of the tables in the book, this means: n=5, rho=2%, theta=30deg, K**2 = 1.0. The dimensionless component values were scaled by the corner frequency of 200kHz, and reference impedence of 50 Ohm. (The corner is a little lower than the real modulation frequency, since the nonzero resistance of the inductors pushes the frequency up a bit)

The ideal capactior values do not correspond to things we have in hand, so I checked our stock and chose the closest value to each one.Unsurprisingly, due to these component substitutions, and the fact that the coilcraft inductors have a resistance of about 7 Ohms, the predicted TF of the realizable filter does not match the design filter exactly. However, the predicition still looks like it will meet the requirement of 40dB of supression of the 2F line in the PD signal. (Since we have tunable inductors, I've used the ideal inductor values in generating the TF. In practice I'll inspect the TF while I tune them)

[In this TF plot, I've multiplied the real response by 2 to account for the voltage division that occurs with ideal 50 Ohm impedance matching, to make 0dB the reference for proper matching]

The filter's phase delay at the modulation frequency is just about 180, which as a time delay of 5usec works out to 9 degrees of phase loss at 10kHz in the PDH loop. According to some old measurements, the current LPF costs something like 35 degrees at 10k, so this wins at most around 25 degrees, depedent on what LPF we put after the mixer.

LISO source both traces is attached!

I've build the filter, and it seems to have the desired TF shape.

I also re-purposed the 70k lowass to a ~120k lowpass by changing the 68nF caps to 22nF caps, since we still want some post-mixer rolloff. 

However, putting the ELPF in the chain caused some weird shapes in the OLG. I still need to get to the bottom of it. However, just with the post-mixer LPF modification, here's what the OLG looks like:

As Rana surmises, we definitely still add a boost and maintain a 10k UGF. I still need to look into the state of the remote boost....

Seems weird to design a PD lowpass with a corner at the modulation frequency. Recall what our strategy is with the other photodetectors we use for PDH servos: bandpass, not low-pass, and the band has to be wide enough to not effect the phase of the servo.

As I was looking at filter designs, it seemed difficult to get 40dB of supression at 2F with a bandpass without going to a pretty high order, which would mean a fair number of lossy inductors.

I'll keep working on it. Maybe we don't need 40dB...

Indeed. This is why the LSC PDs have a 2f notch in addition to the 1f resonance. In recent versions, we also put a 2f notch in the feedback of the preamp which comes after the diode but before the mixer. The overall 1f to 2f ratio that we get is in the 50-60 dB region. I don't think we have to go that far with this thing; having a double LC already seems like it should be pretty good, or we could have a single LC bandpass with a 2f notch all in one Pomona box.

I locked the arms with IR, and measured the beatnote spectra to get the out of loop noise for the PDH boxes. 

Unfortunately, we don't have a reference saved (that I can find), so we're going to have to compare to an elog of Koji's from a month ago.  I have created an out of loop ALS reference .xml file in the Templates/ALS folder.

As we can see from Koji's elog 10302, the Xarm seems to have stayed the same, but the Yarm seems to have increased by about an order of magnitude below 100 Hz.  :(

Green Steering Mirror Update

Yesterday, Nick and I completed the green steering mirrors upgrade. I attached the file that contained the procedure that we plan before we did the upgrade. We placed an iris at the input of the OL and we place another iris before the harmonic separator. We did not use the beam scanner because someone was using it, so what we did was to assume that the cavity is well align and place the iris so that we can recover the alignment. We used the measuring tape to approximate as close as we could the position where the lenses were supposed to go. I did a measurement of the derivative of the waist size in terms of the position of the lens and the derivative of the waist Position in terms of the lenses position at the optimum solution that a la mode give us. Because of this plot, we decide to mount lens 3 and lens 5 into translational stages. After mounting each lenses and mirrors we worked on the alignment of the beam into the cavity. We were able to align the green into the cavity and we were able to locked the cavity to the TEM00 mode. We started to work on the optimization of the mode matching. However, the maximum mode matching that we got was around 0.6, which we need to work a little bit more on the tuning of the mode matching. We leave the iris mounted on the table. I took a picture of the table, and I attached below. For the OL, we just make sure that the output where somehow hitting the QPD, but we didn't really I aligned it. We need to work a little bit more on the alignment of the OL and the tuning of the mirror to maximize the green mode matching.

Using a stray beam that is generated as the transmitted green beam from the Xarm goes through the viewport to the PSL table, I installed a fast lens (because I was constrained for space) and a Thorlabs PDA36 photodiode on the PSL table.

The BNC cable runs along the edge of the PSL table, up the corner hole with the huge bundle of cables, and over to IOO_ADC_0. It's channel 3 on the simulink model, which means that it is plugged into connector #4.

With the green resonating TEM00, I have ~1.4V output from the photodiode, as seen on a voltmeter. This corresponds to ~1500 counts on the MEDM screen.

Note to self:  Switch to a ~1cm diode with a boatload of gain (either from the 40m or Bridge), and use transmission through a steering mirror of the actual beat note path, not the jittery viewport pickoff.  Want RIN noise level to be about 1e-5, only care about below ~100Hz so don't need broadband.

[Yuta, Jenne]

We tried to find a different place, not in the main green transmitted beam path, to place the trans camera for the green beams.  There is a little bit of leakage through the 3 high reflector mirrors which steer the beams from the direction when they first come out of the chamber over to the main green beat setup.  2 of these mirrors have virtually no space behind them for a camera (the first one the green beams encounters is right next to the EOM mount, and the 2nd one is pretty close to the Input Pointing QPDs.  We can potentially use the beam leaking through the 3rd steering mirror, if the camera is very close to the edge of the table (so that the camera isn't blocking the IR input pointing beams), but the X beam is so dim as to be nearly impossible to see, even when TEM00.  This precludes the point of the camera, which is to see the modes when we're aligning the beams.  (X power on the PSL table is pretty high - 330uW measured today, but those mirrors must transmit the Y beam's polarization more than the X beam's.)

Our other thought was to use one of the secondary beams coming out of the chambers.  This is kind of Mickey Mouse, but we thought that since this is just a camera to see the modes, as opposed to a PD, maybe it's okay.  This is a moot point however, since the secondary and tertiary beams (due to the wedge of the window) are clipped for the Y green.  We closed the PSL shutter then removed the beam pipe between the PSL table and the chamber so I could look inside. 

It looks to me like the main green transmitted beams are exiting through the window several inches from any edge, so they're definitely not clipping.  But the reflection from the window back into the chamber is hitting some optic.  The X green is hitting the face of the optic, while the Y green is hitting the edge of the optic and part of the mount.  The reflections from this mount then go back toward the chamber window and out toward the PSL table.  This isn't a big deal for the camera situation - we'll just use the leakage from one of the steering mirrors somehow, but it does mean that there is some green light reflected back onto an IR mirror, and potentially causing grief.  I didn't look to see if the mirror it's hitting is the 1st in-vac IR steering mirror (I don't think so) or something in the OMC / AS path (I think it's something here), but either way, we could be making trouble for ourselves.  We should try to dump the reflection from the window when we vent.  Jamie has put it on the List.

We replaced the beam pipe between the PSL table and the chamber before opening the shutter on the laser.  We are currently sticking with the plan of putting the camera in the main green trans path for initial alignment, then removing it for the rest of the work.

[Yuta, Paco]

We installed GRX_SM1, GRX_SM2, and finished aligning the GRY_SM1, and GRY_SM2 steering mirrors in the BS and IMC Chambers. GRY_SM1 was slightly misplaced (by ~ 2 inches), so we had to move it slightly. Luckily this didn't grossly misaligned the IMC, and we could recover quickly by touching MC1 & MC3 pitch, and MC1 slight yaw.

Then, Yuta installed GRX_SM1, and GRX_SM2 by repurposing two 45 AOI P-Pol GR transmission mirrors on the flowbench. Because one of the weights on the BSC was in the way of GRX_SM2, it was shifted it before installation. This probably shifted the balancing of the whole table. The GRY beam is still not lock-able to the YARM, so as a proxy for GRY transmission beam we used the slight GRX reflection from the BS, and noted slight clipping through PR3 (in transmission). This should probably be checked with GTRY.

We believe this is the last installation operation of this vent.

We made sure the WFS feedback loop is working, and realigned the arm cavities to be flashing.

Attachment #1

Layout as of today. Most of the green path is done. The Green REFL PD + PZT mirrors have not been hooked up to their respective power sources yet (I wonder if it's okay to start laying cables through the feedthroughs on either end of the table already, or if we want to put whatever it is that makes it airtight eventually in first?). A rough power budget has been included (with no harmonic separator just before the window), though some optimization can be done once the table is completely repopulated.

Attachment #2

A zoomed-in version of the REFL path.

Some general notes:

1. I've tried to use the custom 3/4" O.D. posts + baseplate arrangement wherever possible (only 1 steering mirror is on a 1" post clamped with a fork to the table because of space constraints). Where the baseplates could not be bolted onto the table directly, I've used Newport SS Dogs to do the job.
2. I checked for continuity between the PZT outer case and the table top with a multimeter, and found none. So I chose to leave the Thorlabs baseplates in place. For the REFL PD, I've used an insulating baseplate given to me by Steve.
3. I've used some custom length 3/4" O.D. posts to get the beam up to the right height (~4.75") just before sending the green beam in. The beam height is 4" elsewhere.
4. I was playing around with positioning the harmonic separator immediately before the vacuum chamber window - I found that there is a substantial amount of green light that is reflected, though there doesn't seem to be any IR leaking through. The mirror was labelled Y1-1037-45P, which is a code for CVI mirrors, though I believe it is a LaserOptik product and that we have a couple of other such mirrors in the optics cabinet - though they are all 1". This document suggests that from the back side, there should be <0.1% reflection of green while on the front side it should be < 3%. I will have to hunt a little more for the specs, and measure the powers to see if they match the previously quoted numbers. In any case, I'll have to think of how to separate the (unwanted) reflected green and the transmitted IR from the cavity in the IR transmon path.
5. There are some minor changes to the planned layout posted here - I will update these in due course once the Transmon path and Oplev have been set up.

I am closing the PSL shutter and the EX laser shutters for the night as I have applied a layer of first contact to the window for cleaning purposes, and we don't want any laser light incident on it. It may be that the window is so dirty that we may need multiple F.C. cleaning rounds, we will see how the window looks tomorrow...

The Y-End green beam was roughly aligned by the steering mirrors for the green beam.

I couldn't understand the Y-End green setup as the PD was turned off and the sign of the servo was flipped. Once they are fixed, I could lock the cavity with the green beams.

After a long alignment session, TEM00 was found. The alignment of the green beam has not been optimized.

Looking at the spot position at ETMY OSEM holders (not by the ccd image), it seems that the cavity mode is not at the center of the mirrors.

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...

With the IR beats going to the nominal ALS channels as Gautam left them, we're able to measure the free running frequency noise of the end AUX lasers. 

Specifically, the end shutters are closed, leaving the AUX lasers free running. The IR beats then consist of this free running light beating with the PSL light, and the ALS phase trackers give a calibrated frequency noise spectrum. I've stabilized the PSL light by locking the laser to the Y arm via MC2 acutation, so the free running AUX laser noise should dominate by a lot above the suspension resonances. This also has the benefit of giving me the use of the CAL'd Y arm displacement as a sanity check. 

At this point in time, it looks like the X laser is close to 10x noisier than the Y laser, though it does seem to be at the rule-of-thumb "10kHz/rtHz at 100Hz" level. 

I measured the DC response of the Green PD

Power into PD at DC (green laser pointer) = 285 uW
Voltage out of PD = 552mV/(100x SR560gain) = 5.52mV
Photocurrent = 5.52mV/(241 Ohms)*3 = 68.7uA
Responsivity = 68.7/285 = 0.24 A/W

Therefore, since the responsivity is in the correct range for a Silicon PD at 532nm, the DC output is giving us sensible response to an input signal.


But, there is a 2.12MHz, 328mV oscillation on the DC output irrespective of the incident power.
 

I've been trying to understand the green beat setup on the PSL table to see if I can explain the abysmal mode-matching of the arm and PSL green beams on the broadband beat PDs. My investigations suggest that the mode-matching is very sensitive to the position of one of the lenses in the arm green path. I will upload a sktech of the PSL beat setup along with some photos, but here is the quick summary.

1. I first mapped the various optical components and distances between them on the PSL table, both for the arm green path and the PSL green path
2. Next, setting the PSL green waist at the center of the doubling oven and the arm green waist at the ITMs (in vacuum distances for the arm green backed out of CAD drawing), I used a la mode to trace the Gaussian beam profile for our present configuration. The main aim here was to see what sort of mode matching we can achieve theoretically, assuming perfect alignment onto the BBPDs. The simulation is simplified, the various beam splitters and other transmissive optics are treated as having 0 width
3. It is pretty difficult to accurately measure path lengths to mm accuracy, so to validate my measurement, I measured the beam widths of the arm and PSL green beams at a few locations, and compared them to what my simulation told me to expect. The measurements were taken with a beam profiler I borrowed from Andrew Wade, and both the arm and PSL green beams have smooth Gaussian intensity profiles for the TEM00 mode (as they should!). I will upload some plots shortly. The agreement is pretty good, to within 10%, although geometric constraints on the PSL table limited the number of measurements I could take (I didn't want to disturb any optics at this point)
4. I then played around with the position of a fast (100mm EFL) lens in the arm green path, to which the mode matching efficiency on the BBPD is most sensitive, and found that in a +/- 1cm range, the mode matching efficiency changes dramatically

Results:

Attachments #1 and 2: Simulated and measured beam profiles for the PSL and arm green beams. The origin is chosen such that both beams have travelled to the same coordinate when they arrive at the BBPD. The agreement between simulation and measurement is pretty good, suggesting that I have modelled the system reasonably well. The solid black line indicates the (approximate) location of the BBPD

Attachment #3: Mode matching efficiency as a function of shift of the above-mentioned fast lens. Currently, after my best efforts to align the arm and PSL green beams in the near and far fields before sending them to the BBPD results in a mode matching efficiency of ~30% - the corresponding coordinate in the simulation is not 0 because my length measurements are evidently not precise to the mm level. But clearly the mode matching efficiency is strongly sensitive to the position of this lens. Nevertheless, I believe that the conclusion that shifting the position of this lens by just 2.5mm from its optimal position degrades the theoretical maximum mode matching efficiency from >95% to 50% remains valid. I propose that we align the beams onto the BBPD in the near and far fields, and then shift this lens which is conveniently mounted on a translational stage, by a few mm to maximize the beat amplitude from the BBPDs. 

Unrelated to this work: I also wish to shift the position of the PSL green shutter. Currently, it is located before the doubling oven. But the IR pickoff for the IR beat setup currently is located after the doubling oven, so when the PSL green shutter is closed, we don't have an IR beat. I wish to relocate the shutter to a position such that it being open or closed does not affect the IR beat setup. Eventually, we want to implement some kind of PID control to make the end laser frequencies track the PSL frequency continuously using the frequency counter setup, for which we need this change...

I tried to realize an improvement in the mode matching onto the BBPDs by moving the lens mentioned in the previous elog in this thread. My best efforts today yielded X and Y beats at amplitudes -15.9dBm (@37MHz) and -25.9dBm (@25MHz) respectively. The procedure I followed was roughly:

1. Do the near-field far-field alignment of the arm and PSL green beams
2. Steer beam onto BBPD, center as best as possible using the usual technique of walking the beam across the photodiode
3. Hook up the output of the scope to the Agilent network analyzer. Tweak the arm and PSL green alignments to maximize the beat amplitude. Then move the lens to maximize the beat amplitude.

As per my earlier power budget, these numbers translate to a mode matching efficiency of ~53% for the X arm beat and ~58% for the Y arm beat, which is a far cry from the numbers promised by the a la mode simulation (~90% at the optimal point, I could not achieve this for either arm scanning the lens through a maximum of the beat amplitude). Looks like this is the best we can do without putting in any extra lenses. Still a marginal improvement from the previous state though...

Last Friday, I installed some RF couplers on the green BBPDs' outputs, and sent them over to Gautam's frequency divider module. At first I tried 20dB couplers, but it seemed like not enough power was reaching the dividers to produce a good output. I could only find one 10dB coupler, and I stuck that on the X BBPD. With that, I could see some real signals come into the digital system.

I don't think it should be a problem to leave the couplers there during other activities.

I found (an old) 10 dB coupler in the RF component shelves near MC2 - it has BNC connectors and not SMA connectors, but I thought it would be worth it to switch out the 20dB coupler currently on the X green beat PD on the PSL table with it. I used some BNC to SMA adaptors for this purpose. It appears that the coupler works, because I am now able to register an input signal on the X arm channel of the digital frequency counter (i.e. the coupled output from the green beat PD). I thought it may be useful to have this in place and do an IR transmissions arm scan using ALS for the X arm as well, in order to compare the results with those discussed here. However, the beat note amplitude on the analyzer in the control room looks noticeably lower - I am not sure if the coupler is responsible for this or if it has to do with the problems we have been having with the X end laser (the green transmission doesn't look glitchy on striptool though, and the transmission itself is ~0.45). In any case, we could always remove the coupler if this is hindering locking efforts tonight. 

[Jenne, Rana, ericq]

No luck locking tonight, as spent a while trying to figure out the complete absence of the green beatnotes. Long story short, we ended up having to adjust the pointing on the PSL table.

Unrelated to this, we also turned on the noise eater on the PSL laser because why not. 

We hooked the BBPDs directly up to a 300MHz scope to try to see the beat as it happened. We witnessed a very strange intermittent ~800MHz oscillation on the Y BBPD, and weirder still, on both the RF and DC outputs of the PD, and the frequency was independent of the laser temperatures. This is to be investigated in the future, but was not related to the beat note state. 

Some progress was made when we took some components out, and looked at the far field of the PSL-Ygreen overlap, and saw some misalignment, and corrected it. Putting the end laser temperature in the usual area allowed the beat note to be found, with the eventual amplitude of ~-40dBm directly out of the BBPD. The Y green alignment was pretty bad throughout, so this can be improved to bring the beat amplitude up. We should also check and make sure we're well aligned to the SHG with the PSL light. We're leaving the X beat for tomorrow, now knowing that we should be able to get it with careful alignment. 

finally we found it !

Nice work!

The mirror which was moved during the mode matching of PSL light to the MC (ref elog #3791) has been repositioned.  We once again have the green light from the NPRO on the X (south) arm available on the PSL table. 

This light was supposed to be collimated by the two plano convex lenses (f=200mm and f=50mm  ref to elog #3771) but it was converging.  So I moved the f=50mm lens backwards to make the beam collimated.  I checked the beam collimation by introducing an Al coated mirror infront of th PD and diverting the beam temporarily in a free direction.  I could then check the collinearity and collimation of both the green beams over a meter.  After alignment the mirror was removed and the light is now incident on the PD once again.  We can now proceed to look for green beats.

The power from the PSL NPRO was attenuated for the MC locking work of yesterday.  It has now been increased to the maximum by rotating the Half Wave Plate (HWP).  The power after the PSL is now about 450mW  (500mW - 10% picked off for the doubling).

[Yuta, JC]

Yuta and I tested at the Y End for Green Beam

Yuta and I went over the the Yend to check on the green laser. Yuta and I tried a couple of test to see if there was a quick fix. 

· We used an ohm meter to check if the red interlock switch was working. (Beeps when pulled and silent when pushed.) The Interlock switch is working just fine. 
· We tried another laser that we found in the laser cabinet along the Y arm. This was a Lumentum 125 that said “5mW power (DYING!!!!)” on it. When we connected this to the controller, the laser did not turn on. I’m assuming that whoever labeled this laser “Dying” would have put “Dead” if the laser stopped working. So the laser should work, right ? 

Overall, we can rule out the interlock issue. It should be something with the controller, or the head. Though if we assume the laser works fine, the controller may be the issue. If we can make sure this spare Lumentum 125 works, this will mean that our laser at Y End is still alive. Is there anywhere I can test this ?

The LED blinking on the head is normal. We can ignore that.

It is likely that the controller is the issue. I brought the PSL AUX laser controller to the Y End, and the laser turned on / the green light was visible.

Resolution:

- Find a spare controller (West Bridge, Downs). I could not find a spare controller. There is a dead (~5mW) NPRO in a cabinet, so there should be an unused controller...where?

    - Asking Downs/Liyuan if he has a spare -> Yes he is
    - CTN has two NPRO sets. One is functional. The other is not. It was confirmed that the controller is broken and the head is alive. (cf [ELOG CTN 2619])
    - Use the PSL AUX NPRO controller.

- Bring the PSL AUX to Y End. However, some experiments with that laser are on going.

- Bring an NPRO combo back from UCB. UCB has borrowed an NPRO combo. We heard that it is coming back soon.

Borrowed an NPRO controller from Liyuan @ Downs B138

Model M125/6-OPN-PA
SN 359M
Manufactured March 1998

The laser illumination is back with this controller.

POWER ADJ 0: 1064nm OUTPUT 277mW / 532nm OUTPUT (right after the harmonic separator) 0.67mW
POWER ADJ +10: 1064nm OUTPUT 364mW / 532nm OUTPUT (right after the harmonic separator) 1.09mW
Inter lock connected

Y arm green was still aligned to the arm cavity. I could confirm the Y green was locked with GRTY ~0.2.
The crystal temperature was adjusted to be 43.6degC as before and this actually did reproduce the beat note between the Y end AUX laser and the PSL.

The broken controller was labeled and stored in Yarm cabinet E03.

Model 126/6 M
SN 239M
Manufactured July 1996

I've made progress on the new layout up to the doubling oven. After doing the coarse alignment with the diode current to the NPRO at ~1A, I turned it back up to the nominal 2A. I then rotated the HWP before the IR Faraday such that only ~470mW of IR power is going into the doubler (the rest is being dumped on razor beam dumps). After tuning the alignment of the IR into the doubling oven using the steering mirror + 4 axis translation stage on which the doubling oven is mounted, I get ~3.2mW of green after the harmonic separator and a HR mirror for green. The mode looks pretty good to the eye (see attachment #1), and the conversion efficiency is ~1.45%/W - which is somewhat less than the expected 2%/W but in the ballpark. It may be that some fine tweaking of the alignment + polarization while monitoring the green power can improve the situation a little bit (I think it may go up to ~4mW, which would be pretty close to 2%/W conversion efficiency). The harmonic separator also seems to be reflecting quite a bit of green light along with IR (see attachment #2) - so I'm not sure how much of a correction that introduces to the conversion efficiency. 

While doing the alignment, I noticed that some amount of IR light is actually transmitted through the HR mirrors. With ~500mW of incident light at ~45 degrees, this transmitted light amounts to ~2mW. Turns out that this is also polarization dependant (see attachment #3) - for S polarized light, as at the first two steering mirrors after the NPRO, there is no transmitted light, while for P-polarized light, which is what we want for the doubling crystal, the amount transmitted is ~0.5%. The point is, I think the measured levels are consistent with the CVI datasheet. We just have to take care find all these stray beams and dump them.

I will try and optimize the amount of green power we can get out of the doubler a little more (but anyway 3mW should still be plenty for ALS). Once I'm happy with that, I will proceed with laying out the optics for mode-matching the green to the arm.

[Yuta, Manasa]

We have aligned the Y-arm to lock in green. The green beams at the PSL table were clipping at the attenuation optics we installed for the vent (HWP-PBS-HWP). We had to move the polarization changing wave plate to get the green beam on the steering mirror. We installed the GRNT camera on the PSL table and aligned the arms to get TEM00 flashing. Green TRX PD was then installed and the trans power was brought to a maximum of 210uW.
We will use this to align the IR to the arm when we are back in full power tomorrow.

The green beam for the Xarm is flashing a pretty nice 00 mode, but isn't catching lock.

The green beam for the Yarm isn't flashing at all that I can tell from just the camera views.  I don't have energy to start this sometimes monumental task tonight, so I leave it for Future Jenne to work on.

Jenne, Koji and I assembled the Covesion Oven today, inserted a PPKTP crystal from Raicol, aligned the crystal to a 50mW focus and
got some green beam coming out.

Covesion Oven assembly

The oven contains a brass clip that can clamp a crystal up to 10mm wide x 0.5mm high x 40mm long (according to the instructions). According to the correspondence from Covesion the clip can accomodate a crystal up to 1.5mm high. Our crystal is 1mm x 1mm x 30mm.

1. We removed the brass springs from the clip - see Koji's photos
2. We placed the Raicol PPKTP crystal (#725) into the clamp with the long polished surfaces facing out to the sides and the roughened surfaces facing up and down.
3. We balanced the 10mm x 40mm x 1mm glass plate on top of the crystal.
4. We replaced the brass springs in the top of the clip but only tightened the screws a couple of turns so they wouldn't fall out.
5. Very carefully and slowly, I tightened the screws a few turns in a star-shaped order to distribute the pressure evenly across the glass top
6. Each time I tightened all eight screws, I jiggled each of the four springs to see if there was any compression in them
7. Once the springs started to show signs of compression I stopped tightening them and tested the stability of the glass plate - a reasonable amount of pressure was required to move the plate - about the same amount required to push a SR560 across an optical table with your index finger.
8. We loosely attached the lid and moved the oven to the table

Alignment of the crystal to the focus

The oven was mounted on a 4-axis Newport translation stage. We plonked the assembly onto the table, removed the lid and adjusted the rough position so that a focus of the 1064nm beam, from a 100mm lens, was positioned near the center of the crystal - then it was clamped down to the table. From here we adjusted the alignment of the stage, using an IR card and a viewer to guide us, until we eventually saw some green beam coming out. We were all very excited by this! We optimized the alignment as best we could using the IR card and then we replaced the lid on the oven. At this point the temperature of the PPKTP was around 26.5C and the green beam coming out look quite dim. We turned the oven up to around 36 degC and observed the beam getting much brighter and we approached the optimum phase-matching condition.

We haven't done anyway quantitative measurements yet but we were pleased with how easy this first stage was.

[Edit by Koji] More photos are on Picasa album

[Paco, Yehonathan]

We fixed the slow control over the green beam shutters.

At the Y arm the wrong BNC was connected to the shutter driver. We connected the correct BNC to the driver and switched the remote mode. The green Y shutter now works but in reverese, meaning that sending 1 to C1:AUX-GREEN_Y_Shutter closes the shutter and vice versa. This needs to be fixed.

At the X end the problem was a bit more complicated. Previously, the shutter was controlled by c1auxey. We figured that c1auxex has a lot of spare bio channels. We found an Acromag BNC front panel (with wires already soldered to the BNCs) lying around in the lab and installed it on the c1auxex Acromag chassie. We then connected the topmost BNC to channel 0 on XT1111A in the chassie. The BNC was connected to the green shutter driver on the X end.

EPIC channel was added to the c1auxex db file while it was commented out on the psl shutters db file. Modbus was restarted on c1auxex and c1psl. c1psl had to be burt restored to regain MC lock. Now the green X shutter works properly.

After I aligned the IR interferometer (no ASS - we still need to figure out what's going on with that), I am trying to find the green beatnotes for each arm.

First, I locked the green lasers to each arm.

I then went out to the PSL table and aligned the Green Yarm path by overlapping the near-field and far-field of the yarm transmission and the PSL green pickoff.  I then turned on the power for the Beat PDs, since it was off (I confirmed that the outputs were plugged into the beatbox, so they are seeing 50 ohms).  I assume that the beat PDs were off since Manasa pulled the Beatbox last week, but there is no elog reference!!  Anyhow, after seeing a real signal, I maximized the DC power on the beat PD for the Yarm.  I then maximized the light on the DC transmission PD for the Yarm.

I looked at the Xarm, and the near-field alignment looks okay, but I haven't checked the far-field.

I started looking for the beatnotes from the control room:

I am changing the SLOW_SERVO2_OFFSETs by 30 counts, and then unlocking and relocking the arms, and checking to see if I see a peak on the RF spectrum analyser. 

The Y offset started at -10320, and I found a beatnote at -11230 (beatnote is about 26MHz).  The X offset started at 4500.  Going larger seemed to get me to a less bright TEM00 mode, so I switched and have been searching by going down in offset, but haven't yet found the beatnote.  I suspect that I actually need to align the X path on the PSL table.  The Y beatnote is very small, about -30dBm, so I also need to tweak the alignment by maximizing the peak value.

I am able to lock the Yarm ALS, but not at the full gain that I should be.  I attribute this to my mediocre alignment of the path on the PSL table.  EDIT: Manasa pointed out that I forgot to set the PSL FSS slow adjust to ~zero, so the PSL temperature was off, so there wasn't really any hope for me last night.

However, I decided that I should write down the ALS locking procedure, as shown to me by Masayuki on 29Oct2013, that is written in one of the Control Room notebooks.  So, here it is.  I will write channel names and DTT template names for the Y arm, but the procedure is the same for both arms.

1. Lock and align arms using IR.
2. Lock green beams to arms.
3. Align green beams to arms.
4. Check beatnote alignment on PSL table.
5. Find beatnote by changing end laser temperature (C1:ALS-Y_SLOW_SERVO2_OFFSET) in steps of ~30, watch spectrum analyser for peak.  Easier if arms are locked in IR, but disable LSC system before moving to step 6.  Beatnote should be less than ~50 MHz, and should have a peak height of about -20dBm or more.  When doing 2 arms, be careful that beatnotes of the different arms do not overlap in frequency.  Manasa reminds me that you must also remember to set the PSL FSS SLOW actuator adjust to near zero, to get the PSL back near its nominal temperature.
6. Check UGF of phase tracker loop.  (DTT template in /users/Templates/ALS/YALS_PT_OLTF.xml) Want UGF to be ~2kHz.  Change C1:ALS0BEATY_FINE_PHASE_GAIN as necessary.
7. Start the watch script from the ALS screen to watch for lockloss.
8. Look at the PHASE_OUT spectrum (DTT template in /users/Templates/ALS/ALS.xml).
9. Clear history of Phase Tracker Loop (clear hist button on C1:ALS-BEATY-FINE_PHASE screen).  Very important to do this before step 10, every time you get to step 10  (i.e. if you lose lock and are starting over)!
10. Check sign of loop gain by using + or - 0.1 for the gain (C1:ALS-YARM_GAIN).  Beatnote should immediately stop moving if you have the sign right.  Otherwise, it'll zip around (if it does, repeat step 9, step 10).
11. Turn gain of ALS up to ~15.  Watch the PHASE_OUT spectrum, look for the servo bump.  When you see it, back off the gain a little.  Gain of ~15 is usually about the right ballpark.
12. Turn on FM 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 of C1:ALS-YARM.  (FM5 should already have been on).
13. Wait for PHASE_OUT spectrum to come down.  Turn on FM10 of C1:ALS-YARM.
14. Check UGF of ALS loop (DTT template in /users/Templates/ALS/YALS_OLTF.xml).  Want UGF to be about 150 or 170 Hz (at the peak of the phase bubble).  Adjust C1:ALS-YARM_GAIN as necessary.
15. ALS is locked!  Use something like the "Scan Arm" script from the ALS screen to find IR resonance, or do whatever measurement you want.  Dataviewer template /users/Templates/Dataviewer_Templates/ALSdtv.xml may be useful.

 I found the beatnotes for both the X and Y arm ALS this morning. The beat amplitudes measured -5dBm and -18dBm respectively and occurred at SLOW SERVO2 OFFSET 4550 and -10340. I had to only tweak the Y green PSL alignment to increase the beat amplitude.

I locked both the arms using ALS and they were stably locked until MC unlocked for a moment (nearly 16 minutes).

The only thing missing in the list of things you looked into is the status of the PSL slow actuator adjust. Check if this is near zero.

[EricQ, Koji, Manasa]

We opened the BS chamber to check the status of the green beams. The X green has 3 steering mirrors before they hit periscope1 and the Y green transmits through all the optics giving no way to steer it.

We agreed to start fixing the Y green. The wedge angle of PR3 is steering the transmitted beam away in both pitch and yaw. Since we are restricted only to yaw movement (done by moving the periscope), we want he wedge angle to be oriented in the yaw as well.

Right now, the wedge is oriented at about 20-30 deg off (The mark on the side of the mirror does not indicate the wedge). So we see a pitch as well as yaw misalignment in the transmitted beam. The pitch misalignment is making the beam fall off the mirrors in periscope2. 

We have decided to get the wedge angle set right for PR3 and redo the alignment for IR. Once we are aligned for the IR, we will modify the green layout.

A cosmic ray struck the RFM in the framebuilder this afternoon, causing hours of consternation.  The whole FE system is just now coming back up, and it appears the mode cleaner is not coming back to the same place (alignment).

rob, jenne

 Jenne, Rana, Koji

The mode cleaner has been realigned, using a combination of techniques.  First, we used ezcaservo to look at C1:SUS-MC(1,3)_SUS(DOF)_INMON and drive C1:SUS-MC(1,3)_(DOF)_COMM, to put the MC1 and MC3 mirrors back to their DriftMon values.  Then we looked at the MC_TRANS_SUM on dataviewer and adjusted the MC alignment sliders by hand to maximize the transmission.  Once the transmission was reasonably good, we saw that the spot was still a little high, and the WFS QPDs weren't centered.  So Koji and I went out and centered the WFS, and now the MC is back to where it used to be.  The MC_TRANS QPD looks nice and centered, so the pointing is back to where it used to be.

Koji and Steve,

We took transferfunctions of each channel yesterday. They were identical ?. I will check the cables from ADC to DAQ next.

As reported previously, the transfer functions of the channels look fine. (i.e. All channels almost identical.)
I checked the chain from the unit input to the DAQ BNC connectors. They were all OK.

Today I have been checking the signals on the unit with the long DB37 cables connected.
I could not see anything on the Gur2 channels on the board. I looked at the DB37 for Gur2 and felt something is wrong.

I opened the housing of the cable and realized that all the pins are not fully inserted.
The wires were crimped improperly and prevents them to be fully inserted.

=> We need to redo the crimping to insert them.
=> We need to check the other side too.