the machine people saw a correlation between BPM jumps and vacuum gauges peaks related to breakdowns in the beam pipe.

these breakdowns could produce some accoustic noise which could be related to our lock losses.

=> we tried to do a corrrelation between our lock losses and the vacuum gauge peaks => WE DON'T SEE any correlation !!!

This afternoon, we started almost all the parts of the machine with Vincent and Nicolas, and we didn't see any change in the Loop noise signal.
we saw only a peak comb at 10Hz on the Loop noise signal when the septum is ON. the amplitude of the peaks is then related to the voltage on the septum.
but we still don't see any noise correlation on the PZT signal.

the global conclusion about CEM noise is it is not related to laser PZT noise.

if the 20Hz oscillation is coming from a mechanical unstability in the CFP, we should be able to trigger it by moving the longitudinal motors of the CFP.
we tried also to move the MOT.03 and MOT.06 motors and we didn't see any clear correlation with the 20Hz oscillation.

the 20Hz oscillation could come from the CTA pressure variations on the housing => we can try to trigger the oscillation on the housing.

The goal of these measurements is to check if one can find some correlation between the CFP lock losses observed during a run and some CEM noise in the bunker.
the main issue is coming from a 20Hz noise apearing/disapearing in the laser cavity PZT signal.
is it a real cavity length noise that must be compensated or is it a pickup noise in the error signal which produce some unwanted compensation ?
the second issue (apearing much less often) is a higher frequency noise visible mainly in the transmission signal of the CFP which becomes wider and noisy during 1-2 seconds.

This morning, I installed a simple wire loop all around the table (the machine is OFF).
this wire is connected to the wire of a BNC connector at one end and to the ground of the same BNC connector at the other end to form a loop.
this BNC connector is connected to a 1kHz low pass filter to remove high frequency CEM noises and connected to a 10-1000 variable gain amplifier, plugged to the CH3 of the CFP scope (instead of the PDH/PZT-CAV signal).

I locked the CFP above 80kW after tuning the CEP.

I took several pictures to illustrate what I observed :
- on the right, the scope signal in time domain (blue = TRANS / green = PZT laser / cyan = REFLECT / pink = LOOP noise)
- on the left, the spectral analysis in frequency domain (red = PZT laser / white = LOOP noise)

in these 3 measurements, I don't do anything to the CFP, I just wait for the signals.

1) normal condition : see picture "Without Noise @ 20Hz"
the PZT signal in time domain is relatively flat and the 20Hz noise is barely visible in frequency domain.
we don't see any correlation with the LOOP noise for which one can see clear 50Hz and 100Hz peaks.

2) 20Hz noise condition : see picture "With Noise @ 20Hz"
the PZT signal in time and frequency domain exhibit a clear 20Hz oscillation.
the REFLECT and TRANS signals are also correlated to this 20Hz oscillation.
but still no correlation with the LOOP noise in time or frequency domain.

3) 20Hz noise lock loss condition : see picture "Delock @ 20Hz"
because of the lock loss the spectral analysis of the PZT signal is meaningless,
but in time domain, one can clearly see the growth of the 20Hz signal, inducing large noise on TRANS and REFLECT signal but still no correlation with the LOOP noise.

Conclusion : the 20Hz noise seems not related to any CEM noisy signal but more probably to a real mechanical noise in the CFP (not in the laser cavity because it would be seen in the phase noise measurements).

in this measurement, I tried to produce a tone around 400Hz with my voice, close to the FP cavity.
it is difficult to right volume as the cavity can easily lose the lock.

4) Voice noise condition : see picture "Voice noise @ 400Hz"
here, I changed the spectral span to 500Hz.
one can see a small bump in frequency domain around 400Hz due to the accoustic noise in the PZT signal.
the general shape of the PZT spectral signal is maybe related to the PID parameters : one can see more signal at lower frequencies.
in time domain, one can see TRANS and REFLECT signals are more noisy than before and these signals shapes seems identical to what has been observed when one has lock loss due to high frequency noise.
maybe we could put a mic in the bunker, connected to one scope to check if sometime one doesn't have much more accoustic noise...
 

this morning, I restarted the cavity after the Christmas shutdown.
everything went fine.

I got ~ 86kW for 33% laser amplifier ratio after optimization of the CEP and alignment with walking procedure.

IcePap controllers are OK and the displacements (MOT.03 and MOT.06) let the CFP locked.

I locked also on the RF frequency (I tuned the laser and CFP cavity length) => +4.1ns (C2-C4) between the 10Hz trig (C2) and the 33MHz laser signal (C4)
I observed that the search & relock range on the regulator B plays an important role on the RF locking stability.
so, I increased the previous range +/-0.25V to +/-0.5V.
we have always the 20Hz noise which can be increasing some time but the lock seems more robust.

this morning, Kevin reduced the steering current in the IcePap controllers of the FP cavity motors.

the motor MOT.06 was producing a pattern in the Transmission signal when it was moved and doing a lock loss very often.
so, we changed its current from 0.8A to 0.4A and it fixes the problem => no more systematic lock loss.

so, we changed also the MOT.03 steering current from 0.8A to 0.7A.
on this motor, we have also a false warning about the Low limit switch which seems to be activated (strange because, we are always using it in the positive direction)
Kevin reverted the logic to remove the message.

we obtained 91kW in the FPC for 33% amplifier ratio after CEP and alignment tuning.

we did synchronized xray production with a relative delay between laser 33MHz and trigger (CH2-CH4) of +4 ns

major result of the day: X-ray vertical scan by moving the hexapod

abscise : hexapod position
ordinate : xray flux in asynchronous condition

red curve : continuous injection at 10Hz (the scan lasts for ~5 minutes)
green curve : one single injection (the beam is not extracted).
blue curve : one single injection, ~ 10-15 minutes later

This morning, I added an amplifier on the 33MHz beating signal in between the mixer+LPF and the scope/Laselock.

it seems to improve the robustness of the RF/FPC lock.

because of this gain, I increased the upper and lower thresholds on the search criterion of the RF/FPC lock from +/-50mV to +250mV/-200mV

=> see the picture of the Laselock parameters.

the optimum phase for X-ray production is roughly +3.6ns between C2 (machine trigger) and C4 (33MHz laser signal).

we have to use the machine at 70MeV with a new frequency at 500.0325MHz / 33.3355MHz.

=> we need to move the FPC tomorrow by roughly 60kHz @ 500MHz.

last thing we tried :

we removed the threshold on the FPC/RF error signal.
=> we cannot choose automatically the RF bucket anymore (we need to manually let the phase drift slowly and start the lock at the right moment).
=> but the FPC/RF lock seems more robust.

in that case, we have 2 different sources of lock losses:
- the ones dues to the laser or CFP motors move.
even at low speed or in "piezo scan" mode, one observes too fast mouvement that are not properly compensated and involving some phase shift.
- the ones not related to any action.
=> the 20Hz signal seems to increase until it makes the system losing the lock

we observed that :

- the MOT.03 motor always exhibits some perturbations on the transmitted, reflected and PZT signals (see "peaks" in the picture) in contrary to the MOT.06 motor.
does the differences come from the motor relative positions (-900 000 steps for MOT.06 and -100 000 steps for MOT.03) or from the controller configuration ?

- the stability limits (oscillations arise) of the PID for the RF/CFP locks are P = 1 / I = 0.0001 / D = 5
then we put the new PID parameters : P = 0.25 / I = 0.000025 / D = 1

- the 20Hz oscillations are stil arising from time to time

- the lock laser/CFP is pretty robust, one observes more RF/CFP lock losses.

- we removed the 250Hz filter on the RF/CFP error signal to increase the feedback BW but we didn't see a any improvement

- at 5pm, the laser/CFP lock seems as stable as in the morning, then we don't see any change in stability during time.

we loggued CFP power measurement and signals from the cavity (~ 1GB of data)

today with Alice, we planned to do a long run with ~80kW in the FPC to check if the lock problems are coming from the interaction with the machine or not.
the goal is to check this assumption on a full day comparable with a day of X-ray production.

we started the amplifier at 10am.

during a move of MaY (injection mirrors of the FPC), we observed a sudden total loss of resonances...
the reason was an abnormal displacement of the motor despite the fact the measured position was reasonable.
we already observed an issue like that....
to fix the problem, one just had to move back MaY.

the cavity started to be locked at 11:15am

the RF frequency has been changed to 500.09595MHz equivalent to 33.33973MHz
but we don't have a beating signal @ 500MHz => one will ask to Vincent to fix the issue.

laser motor CH0 : 1.503453 mm
laser moror CH2 : - 50µm

~ 83kW at 12:30pm

at the begining of the day, we started to get ~81kW in the FPC for 33% amplifier ratio and after ~1h, we got 84kW after CEP and alignment tuning.
at the end of the day, we got 89kW without walking alignment.

we tried to improve a bit the robustness of the FPC and RF locks:
see the capture for the new locking parameters.

the RF frequency changed from 500.1003MHz to 500.0913MHz => it reduced by 9kHz @ 500MHz which is equivalent to 600Hz @ 33MHz (we measured 500Hz @ 33MHz). the electron orbit length increased, so we have to increase the cavities length => increase motor values by ~ 68µm.

for the laser cavity : 1.496 560 mm => 1.564 560 mm

the initial values for the motor of the FP cavity are : MOT.03=-130 000 steps and MOT.06=-900 000 steps.
68µm is roughly 11 000 steps (6nm/step) => MOT.03=-130 000 steps and MOT.06=-889 000 steps.

optimum CEP position : -210.8µm => -192µm

I got 80kW in the FP cavity after CEP and walking alignment
then, 82kW after waiting 3h.
then, 84kW after waiting 5h.

this afternoon, we put back the 1/4 and 1/2 waveplates and after a long alignment/angle tuning/CEP optimization process, we hardly got 80-81kW in the cavity for 33% amplifier ratio. the transmission photodiode is then ~ 7.5 divisions (500mV/division) on the scope.

BUT during the 1/2 and 1/4 waveplate angle tuning process, we clearly saw:
- a reflection signal level which is very sensitive to the input polarization
- a coupling which can be almost zero with ~70kW inside the cavity
- the more important: ~9.5 divisions (500mV/division) on the scope with only 70-75kW in the powermeter
        => which device should we believe ?

the problem is all these photodiodes (reflection, error signal, transmission) and powermeter are aligned with mirrors which seem to be sensitive to the polarization state of the beam... and for the "output" beam side of the cavity, we cannot remove the mirrors because of the mechanics of the cavity which prevent a direct view of the ports. for the "input" beam side of the cavity, the output port is used for the cavity beam size measurement with a Basler camera.

we have to think to how to solve this issue !

I put back and aligned the 1/2 waveplate only and I get 71kW max after its optimization and optimizing the CEP and alignment (without walking procedure).
this waveplate change a lot the reflected power seen on the CH2 of the scope.

to be continued this afternoon...

we did a long term run (25 mn) with the powermeter located at the FPC position at 33% amplifier ratio.

the initial power was 18W .
then, it goes to 18.5W in 10 minutes, then 5 minutes later, it goes to 18.3W and stay stable until  the end the run.

this morning, with Daniele, we checked the amplifier power, right after the CVBG (the power meter has to be placed on a metal plate above the large table hole), and just at the input of the FP cavity, after the 1/4 and 1/2 waveplates (the power meter has to be placed on flat beam dump+ Thorlabs beam dump + V metallic mount to be at the right height).

we compared with the power measured the 9th of september : https://elog.lal.in2p3.fr/FPC/THOMX+commissioning/356

the 3 collumns are the measurement close to the CVBG on 9th of september / same position today / just befor the FPC today

amplifier ratio (%)                 power after compressor (W)                 (new) power @ CVBG   (new) power @ FPC      ratio FPC/CVBG power (%)
10                                               0.91                                                  0.93                                    0.83                                       89.2
20                                               8.6                                                    8.6                                      8.0                                         93.0
30                                              16.7                                                  16.9                                    15.8                                        93.5
40                                              25.5                                                  25.6                                    24.0                                        93.7
50                                              34.5                                                  34.6                                    32.5                                        93.9
60                                              42.5                                                  42.5                                    39.5                                        92.9
70                                              50.0                                                  50.0                                    45.0                                        90.0

we observed with the viewer the beam on the powermeter.
at 70% of amplifier ratio, the beam size is as big as the powermeter detector.
then, the 93% to 90% transport efficiency drop could come from this "too small" powermeter detector.

we observed also at this power ratio (70%) that the 1/4 and 1/2 waveplates were not perfectly centered and we burn a part of the platic mount at this power.

the RF frequency is now 500.1003MHz which is equivalent (if divided by 15) to 33.34002MHz.

the frequency has to be changed by ~2kHz @33MHz <=> ~550µm /2 for one motor.

I changed the laser and the FP cavities frequency.

for the laser frequency, the smaract motor CH1 is at 1.500627m.

for the FPC frequency, the plane mirror motors are at MOT.03= - 123 130 steps and MOT.06

BE CARREFUL, when the offset frequency is large, as we measure it on a scope with a beat frequency, if the scope window is too large,
one gets some stromboscope effect and one measures a lower frequency depending on the number of points in the window.

we got ~81kW for 33% amplifier ratio

this morning, I did some walking procedure and CEP alignment to get ~80kW in the FPC with 33% amplifier ratio.

we have to check if this power drop comes from:

- a laser amplifier power drop
- or related to some cavity axis shift which could change the cavity gain due to L-shapes

this morning, I did some walking procedure and I got 82kW in the FPC with 33% amplifier ratio (after CEP optimization too).
but when I move the FP cavity motors to adjust the frequency, I cannot keep this power and it is reduced.
could it be we get a stronger correlation between axis than before in the mechanics has more rust than before ?

I'm able to keep the power quite easily with a stable phase related to the 33MHz RF generator,
so, we are ready to produce X-rays again.

we could do also a measurement of the amplifier power vs ratio, as maybe it reduced a bit which could explain why we have this small power drop compare to before.

Today, after setting the locking parameters, I got 80kW in the FPC for 33% amplifier ratio after CEP tuning (Smaract CH2 ~ -423.5µm) and alignment.

maybe the alignment has to be improved by some walking procedure.