Related Manuals for Alpes Lasers External Cavity Laser Kit
Summary of Contents for Alpes Lasers External Cavity Laser Kit
- Page 1 External Cavity Laser Kit User’s Manual Version number 1.0.6 c 2018 A LPES ASERS...
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- Page 3 COPYRIGHT INFORMATION This manual can be copied and distributed under the following conditions: the work must be attributed in the manner specified by the author or licensor, and cannot be altered or transformed. WARRANTY 1. The customer must control the incoming deliveries and inform A LPES ASERS about incomplete shipments or defective goods within 30 days after delivery.
- Page 4 DOCUMENT VERSION This is Version 1.0.6 of the manual, published on March 26th, 2018. It supersedes version 1.0.5 of the manual, published on September 12th, 2016. The following mod- ifications have been applied since the publication of version 1.0: Date of publication Version number Changes Added fig.
- Page 5 Preface This manual is a reference tool for personnel using the A External Cavity LPES ASERS kit. Its purpose is to provide the customer with sufficient information to carry out nor- mal installation and operating procedures. It is not intended to replace or supersede any local directive.
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Page 7: General Safety Considerations
Safety electronic equipment operates at high voltages and includes a L LPES ASERS ASER that may cause serious injury if not handled properly. The guidelines in this document follow as closely as possible the IEC 60825-1 International Standard for safety of laser products. - Page 8 2 Notation The use of DANGER, WARNING and CAUTION notation in this manual is in compli- ance with the SEMI standard S-13-0298 ; their definition is given below. They may also be used to alert against unsafe practices. DANGER: Indicates an immediate hazardous situation, which, if not avoided, may result in death or serious injury.
- Page 9 2.1 Symbols and labels The danger and warning symbols used in this manual are shown in table 1. general danger electrical hazard radiation hazard safety eyewear mandatory ASER Table 1: Safety symbols most commonly used in the A user’s manual. LPES ASERS c 2018...
- Page 10 3 Health hazard There are three main sources of hazard associated with the Starter Kit: radiation, detailed in section 3.1; ASER electrical, detailed in section 3.2; environmental, detailed in section 3.3. 3.1 L radiation hazard ASER The eyes and skin are the body parts the most likely to be injured. Warnings for tasks that may potentially adversely affect the health of the operator of a QCL are shown below.
- Page 11 4 Specific ECLK Warnings Read the manual before operating the instrument. DANGER: Invisible laser radiation. Avoid direct eye exposure. Class 3R laser product. IMPORTANT: Pay attention to the wire polarity when installing a new QCL chip. Applying a voltage of the wrong polarity may cause irreparable damages to the laser chip. Note: Optical gratings can be easily damaged by moisture, fingerprints, aerosols, or the slightest contact with any abrasive material.
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Page 13: Table Of Contents
Contents Preface Safety General safety considerations ..... . Notation ........viii Symbols and labels . - Page 14 3.4 Front lens alignment ......3.5 Grating alignment ......4 Connectors specifications ECLK user’s manual v1.0.6...
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Page 15: Description
The kit is delivered pre-aligned and ready to use. Additional gain chips with different wavelength coverage and/or output power can be purchased from Alpes Lasers and installed in the instrument by the user. In the case of purchasing a gain medium only, initial alignment and calibration steps are necessary. Characteri- zation data are supplied with every kit and gain medium. -
Page 16: System Overview
Chapter 1: Description IMPORTANT: Make sure that the laser enclosure is purged with dry air or nitrogen when you operate the laser below the dew point. The enclosure is not hermetically sealed and condensation may cause irreparable damages to the laser chip. Notice The present kit is based on Thorlabs’... - Page 17 1.2 System overview 78.50 Figure 1.1: Alpes Lasers External Cavity Laser Kit - closed view. (1) Enclosure base and (2) lid (same outer dimensions and compatible with Thorlabs TLK-E), (3) Base Module (same outer dimensions and compatible with Thorlabs TLK-...
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Page 18: Laser Module
Chapter 1: Description Figure 1.2: Alpes Lasers External Cavity Laser Kit - open view. 1.3 Laser module (1) Laser heatsink assembly, (2) Thermoelectric cooler, (3) Sockets for water cooling, (4) Laser carrier attached by its (6) screws, (5) Laser submount, (7) Back aspheric collimating lens in (8) a holder and (9) its screws (Thorlabs 390037;... - Page 19 1.3 Laser module Figure 1.3: Laser module. (16) Thread mount, (17) Front lens holder attached by its (18) screws, (19) Temperature sensor socket. c 2018...
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Page 20: Grating Module
Chapter 1: Description 1.4 Grating module Figure 1.4: Grating module. (1) Goniometer (Thorlabs GN05/M), (2) Adapter plate, (3) Motorized continuous rotation stage with motor controller (Xeryon XRT-U 30), (4) Blazed diffraction grating attached to its (5) frame, (6) Grating holder. ECLK user’s manual v1.0.6... -
Page 21: Operation
2. Operation 2.1 Quick Start Guide This text provides the necessary information to start operating your ECLK rapidly. More in-depth information is provided in § 2.2. The ECLK is delivered pre-aligned. All included instruments settings have been pre-set for operation according to your specification. 2.1.1 Unpacking 1. -
Page 22: Computer Communication
Chapter 2: Operation 2.1.2 Computer communication 1. Power the Raspberry Pi minicomputer. 2. Connect the Raspberry Pi to your local network with an ethernet cable. 3. Access the client interface (== instrument control screen) in an internet browser at a computer connected to the same network, by using its IP address followed by the port number, e.g. -
Page 23: Laser Operation
Figure 2.1: Alpes Lasers External Cavity Laser Kit - Diver connections block diagram. The ECLK enclosure comes equipped with a servo driver, a temperature controller and a Raspberry Pi unit for overall control. These units should be wired to the enclo- sure according to the diagram shown in Fig. -
Page 24: Graphical User Interface
Chapter 2: Operation 2.3 Graphical user interface In order to access the GUI, connect the Raspberry Pi to your local network using a standard ethernet cable. The MAC address of the embedded computer is listed on the instrument. Write down the IP address and/or the network name attributed to the ECLK computer. -
Page 25: Server Administration Screen
2.3 Graphical user interface 2.3.2 Server administration screen To access the server administration screen (see Fig. 2.4), click Admin on the top left of the start screen or the instrument control screen. You can only access the administrator screen if you are connected with the admin1 account. Other accounts do not have administrator rights. -
Page 26: Instrument Control Screen
Chapter 2: Operation angular offset and enter the measured wavelength value for the current settings in the dialog window (see Fig. 2.5). The software will calculate the corresponding angular offset and correct accordingly. Figure 2.5: Offset correction input screen. To download the calibration file which is currently being used by the system, click Download and follow the instructions in your browser’s download window. - Page 27 2.3 Graphical user interface grouped in the left panel, pulsed driver controls in the top right panel, and temperature control in the bottom right panel. The current status of each subsystem is indicated in the top right corner of the corresponding panel. Figure 2.7: Instrument control screen.
- Page 28 Chapter 2: Operation Figure 2.8: Figure 2.9: Figure 2.10: Step-wise (a) and sweep (b) motion control panels. ECLK user’s manual v1.0.6...
- Page 29 2.3 Graphical user interface To perform a stepwise wavelength scan, click Stepwise, select how you want to specify the scan parameters (Angles or Wavelengths), enter the scan Start, Stop, Step, and Delay, and click Start step-wise motion (see Fig. 2.10(a)). To perform a wavelength sweep, click Sweep, enter the sweep Start, Stop, Veloc- ity in degrees per second, and number of Repetitions, and click Start sweep.
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Page 30: Shut Down
Chapter 2: Operation Pt100 platinum resistor, is shown in real time on the left of the text box. 2.3.4 Shut down Two options are available in the shutdown menu: Shutdown devices and Power off server. Shutdown devices closes communication with the ECLK subsystems but does not power them off. -
Page 31: Maintenance
3. Maintenance The External Cavity Laser Kit is shipped assembled and aligned. The system is highly sensitive to optical alignment and any manipulation of its opto-mechanical components might lead to a suboptimal operation. In this case, or in the case of any intentional reconfiguration, such as the installation of a new gain chip or a new... -
Page 32: Preparation
This step is required only if the kit was not assembled at the factory or if the previous configuration was not the Alpes Lasers original one. For the installation of a quantum cascade laser source only, go directly to section 3.2. - Page 33 3.2 QCL chip installation Figure 3.2: (a) Attachment of the heatsink assembly to the base plate. Blue arrows indicate the orientation. (b) Indication of screw holes positions used to attach the base plate. Attach tightly the gain chip carrier to the heat-sink assembly using two M2 screws. Always hold the carrier by its extremities (Fig.
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Page 34: Back Lens Alignment
Chapter 3: Maintenance available four M2.5 screws. Figure 3.4: S-2 pulsed driver. Connect QCL wires to screw teminals 4 and 7 as indicated. Make sure the encapsulated temperature sensor is well in its socket. Set up the TC-3 temperature controller to ’4 wire RTD’, enable the connection and let the tem- perature stabilize. - Page 35 3.3 Back lens alignment Figure 3.5: (left): Initial attachment of the front lens mounted on its adjuster. (right): After a coarse geometrical alignment. the focus adjuster knob. Prepare at hand a suitable mid-infrared detector or imager. Connect the pulser board, connect to the ECLK server and open the external cav- ity client.
- Page 36 Chapter 3: Maintenance Move the detector along z-axis and verify that the beam is well collimated. To op- timize collimation, minimize the beam size at a distance 0.5 m away from gain chip. If the beam spot is still not gaussian, it can indicate a bad position in y-axis direc- tion.
- Page 37 3.5 Grating alignment stage is then given as = 200 Where the value 200 comes from the approximate maximum angle of 200ˇ r between the grating and the beam in the kit. Place the detector facing the front lens. Align the goniometer stage appropriately and find the signal.
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- Page 39 4. Connectors specifications Description of connectors and feed-through of the enclosure’s back panel. Slot Parameters Gas purge outlet with regulation valve West Group Needle Valve ’NV-32’ Gas purge inlet Serto Hose Nozzle ’LO CV 1100-4-M5’ Water cooling inlet & outlet 2x Serto Quick Coupler for a 4 mm pipe ’CO KA 205’...
- Page 40 Chapter 4: Connectors specifications Description of pins of the D-sub connector to Alpes Laser Minipulser S-2 driving the gain chip. Signal Signal Ground RS232 Rx Ground RS232 Tx Ground Sync Output, TTL (3.3 V) Not connected External Modulation Input, TTL Power Supply Input, 9-20 V ECLK user’s manual v1.0.6...
- Page 41 Description of pins of the lemo connector to TEC controller: Signal Signal Temp sensor, current + Temp sensor, current - Temp sensor, sense + Peltier element, black (-) Temp sensor, sense - Peltier element, red (+) c 2018...
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