What Is Excessive Power; How To Set The Laser To The Dark Position - Agilent Technologies 8163A User Manual

Tunable Lasers
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What is Excessive Power ?

If the text ExP is displayed in a Tunable Laser channel, see Figure 66,
you have set an output power level that is larger than the laser diode
can produce at the selected wavelength.
Figure 66 Excessive Power
To avoid this you can:
• reduce the optical output power,
• press [Pmax] to select the highest permissible power for the
selected wavelength value, or
• press [Pmax/Swp] to select the highest permissible power for the
selected wavelength sweep.

How to Set the Laser to the Dark Position

Attenuator
If your tunable laser has an built-in optical attenuator, you can use
<Dark position> to block all laser light from the output. You can use
this as an alternative to disabling the laser. To enable/disable the dark
position:
1 Move to the Tunable Laser channel and press the [Menu] softkey.
2 Move to the <Dark position> and press Enter. The Dark Position box
appears.
Agilent 8163A/B, 8164A/B, and 8166A/B User's Guide, Fourth Edition
How to Set the Power