From yesterday, after getting TEM 00 out of the cavity, I checked the beam if it's clipped on the edge of the hole or not. There is small light on as seen by an IR viewer. Since it seems to be very small, I'll leave it as it is for now.

There was one problem. The beam was almost on the edge of the periscope's top mirror, I decided to change the height and move the periscope , and other optics in the row, side way, since the beam was really close to the edge of the opening ( I set the beam path to the center of the hole before, so it's bit off ( 5mm, 0.2") from the cavity's natural axis), and made sure that the beam is on the center of every mirror. Then, it's 4 knob adjustment which takes me a whole day again . 

As of now, I got TEM00, out of the cavity. I still have to adjust the lens' position to minimize the reflected beam. Before doing so, I'll prepare a mixer, a power splitter for locking the cavity.

One thing about the AOM, the beam after double pass is quite elliptic. I'm not sure how to correct it, and whether it's going to be a problem or not. I'll find something to read about this.

Fri Jun 11 01:00:17 2010