Today, in the process of designing a intensity control servo I took some noise readings of the PDs and also characterized how the modulation function in the Marconu FG works, as it would this would be essential in the process of desigining a efficient feedback loop. 

Firstly, the alignment of PDs was off, so I had to correct them, which took me more time then it should have, but I finally got it done. Next, I moved on to taking noise readings to measure the 'free running' laser noise, but as it was pointed out to me, this plot in itself is meaningless until the power at which it was taken is specified or in other words the quantity of use would be  which is also called the Relative Intensity Noise(RIN). What I measured was the Voltage noise in the PDs for a fixed Bias voltage( set using the power control of the laser). I calculated them for different bias voltages and the plot is shown below, the wierd shape is because I tried to splice three dfferent spans and it did ot combine as smoothly as I expected. I took noise at 3 different spans(100Hz, 1kHz and 50kHz) and combined them using splice.m program written by Koji. The change in the voltage noise with the bias voltage can be seen very evidently . We could then use the voltage noise at 1V as a measure of RIN .  Again the plot looks wierd becasue of the splice function I used, I will post a better plot when I take another set of readings, in my next log. This plot tells us approximately how much of RIN is there and how much suppression would be needed in our servo. Additionally, I also measured the dark noise but they really wierd after splicing, so I will post those as well in my next log. 

Analyzing the AOM and the Marconi FG

The marconi RF function generator I am using has a modulation input which can be used to control the power going into the AOM which would inturn control the power in the main beam, this is my plan in implementing the intensity feedback. So, I studied the AOM and how it responds to imput modulations of different kinds, this is what I learnt:-

1. If the input modulation has no power in it ( or that its amplitude is 0) the power in the out beam is unchanged. That is zero power at modulation port corresponds to no change in the power.
2. If the Input voltage as a -ve value( which I set by using the offset function in the function generator generating the modulated signal) then, the power output of the FG decreases.
3. If the voltage is +ve, the power increases.
4. There are some other constraints one woud have to consider as well. The max power that can go into the AOM( Model:Gooch & Housego R23080-2W) is 2W( which is 33dBm). A power RF ampifier( mini circuits-ZHL-1-2W) is used to amplify the signal from the FG has a gain of 33dB, which I looked up from the data sheet, so the max power of the  FG must be around 0dBm. But just to be safe, today I just explored its features with a input of -2dBm. I have attached a few photos of me toggling the carrier on/off switch and how it modultes the transmitted power, one coud then send a modulation at a fixed frequency of say 1kHz- this would amplitude modulate the power, which is exactly what we want for our excess noise detection scheme. I have attached a image of this as well. But this whole setup of FG+AOM has to be characterised properly- which is what my next task at hand is.