With the help of Ronic the cavity was locked in preparation to measure the polarization of the reflection line when the cavity is locked (measurement when it is not locked was done before)

the purpose is to compare the two measurements (locked  vs not locked)

General details:

• when not locked : measurements of the polarization was taken from the point where the photodiode is placed in the picture enclose
• When Locked: we can't measure it from that point as we need the line to split into two, one goes to PDH to maintain the lock of the cavity and the other one we use for our measurement.
  • The reflection line is split at the point where the beam splitter is (BS, behind the photodiode in picture), we intended to take the measurements from this point.

Observation:

before starting the measurement of polarization, we observed

• the power measured for the reflection line (point at end of red arrow in picture, after BS) is really sensitive to the polarization, it shows when rotating the half-wave plate
• but, when measuring the power at the point shown in the picture (before BS, where the photodiode is placed) it is not sensitive to polarization.

This tells us that the dielectric BS placed in the reflection line affects the polarization.

This could affect the stability of the locking of the cavity, as the PDH is sensitive to polarization.

** Further investigation is needed before proceeding **

Footnotes:

• BS: Beam splitter.
• Dielectric component's sensitivity to polarization
• most of the components placed in the transmission line are dielectric.