Application Notes

The steps outlined in this application note can be used to stabilize a TLB-7000, TLB-6900, or TLB-6300 series tunable diode laser to a reference cavity using the Pound-Drever-Hall stabilization technique.

Albert A. Michelson won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid.” One of his instruments was the Michelson interferometer. The Michelson interferometer produces interference fringes by splitting a beam of monochromatic light so that one beam strikes a fixed mirror and the other a movable mirror.

Frequency-modulation spectroscopy is a powerful tool that can achieve high sensitivities with a relatively simple experimental setup. Tunable diode lasers, in particular, can make the setup even simpler because they provide a narrow, tunable output that can be easily modulated.

Determining the surface quality of a critical component—the deviation from the intended shape whether flat, spherical, etc.—is crucial to high-precision manufacturing. Traditional methods consist of an interferometer, for example a Twyman-Green interferometer (pictured below) that compares the test optic to a reference.

New Focus balanced photoreceivers are ideal for optical detection applications that require sensitive measurements. This application note focuses on several techniques, divided into three categories: small signal detection in time domain, small signal detection in frequency domain, and coherent heterodyne detection.

With the advancement of high-transmission-rate systems and short-pulse lasers, many applications now require high time-resolution or equivalently, high frequency-bandwidth optical detection. For example, a high-speed photodetector can measure the frequency and time response of optical systems.

With the recent trend towards higher channel counts in telecommunications systems, the efficiency of wavelength-characterization measurements is becoming a major issue. Although the broadband source and OSA method is fast, it doesn't provide the resolution that is required to characterize complicated devices.

Interferometry is widely used to make precision length and displacement measurements ranging from less than a nanometer to tens of meters. Researchers used our 630-nm TLB-6304 laser to perform these types of precision measurements.

High-precision motorized positioners are used for a wide variety of applications such as fiber alignment, semiconductor wafer positioning, micro-assembly, and device testing in a number of different industries. When selecting the appropriate positioner for an application, it is common to evaluate them with regard to the product specifications.

Precise control of polarization behavior is necessary to obtain optimal performance from your optical components and systems. Characteristics such as reflectivity, insertion loss, and beam splitter ratios will be different for different polarizations.

In a swept-wavelength measurement system, the wavelength of a tunable laser source (TLS) is swept continuously at a constant rate throughout the desired tuning range, while the device under test (DUT) is monitored simultaneously for its wavelength-dependent optical properties.

Because fiber is a high gain medium, any light that is inadvertently injected into the ultrafast oscillator, as well as into amplifiers, can degrade and potentially irreversibly affect system performance by causing instability (at best) or damage (at worst).

This note is meant to quickly walk you through the process of how to align our latest delay-line mount in 7 steps. You will see that the delay-line mount has advantages over using two independent mirror mounts. The delay line mount will help to reduce alignment time and to get your experimental results more quickly.

The discovery of the optical frequency comb and the breakthrough work of Hänsch and Hall in refining the frequency comb technique have revolutionized the field of scientific metrology. Optical frequency combs now allow for a more precise measurement of frequencies in the optical domain.

For widely tunable laser, tuning speed and linearity are the terms or specifications quite often being used for characterizing the tuning performance. Tuning linearity is usually defined as the tuning speed deviation from a preset constant, while the wavelength tuning speed is defined by change rate of wavelength over time.