Sudarshan, Travis
We used today's maintenance period to check the PCALX clipping issue mentioned in alog #19899. We moved the clipped beam using the last mirror ( the one that directs the light to the test mass) in the transmitter module and were able to get the reflected beam on the receiver side at a fairly reasonable level. There was a very narrow window in our alignment in both pitch and yaw to get the beam out on the receiver side and we are guessing we are very close to the edge of one of the optics inside the chamber.
The laser power as measured by ophir power-meter are as follows:
Inner Beam | Outer Beam | |
Transmitter Side | 0.738 W | 0.734 W |
Receiver Side | 0.718 W | 0.712 W |
We will check the beam balance between the two beams and optical efficiency during our next calibration and touch up the alignment if needed.