Effects of RF side-bands on spectral reproducibility for infrared synchrotron radiation

We have investigated the effects of audio side-bands from the main RF of the NSLS VUV storage ring on beam motion and specifically on spectral reproducibility in the infra-red region. For this spectral region it is advantageous to use Michelson interferometers because of their high throughput (Jacquinot advantage). A second advantage is that interferometers inherently give a multiplex or Felgett advantage, since one is always looking at all the wavelengths for all of the measuring time, even though there is only one detector. In such instruments it is beneficial to scan the moving mirror at a fast rate so that any mechanical or other low frequency noise shows up as a slow modulation in the interferogram and disappears altogether in the Fourier transform from the spectral region of interest. However, audio frequency side-bands appear from the RF energy restoring cavity as noise on the beam. These always occur at multiples of 60 Hz and can thus be readily identified. They can also be confirmed by changing the mirror velocity which changes where they appear in the spectra in a predictable way. In the present work, we measured spectra while simultaneously reducing and shifting the side bands in the RF and thus were able to correlate the effects and ultimately eliminate them as a source of noise. Ultimately we were able to achieve reproducibilities of <1% in 15 seconds of scanning time across the entire spectral region from 800 cm-1 to 4000cm-1 with a sample throughput of only l0-10 meter2 steradians