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1.2 System overview

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 78.50 

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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-
BM),

(4) Laser Module,

(5) Drive Electronics (Alpes Lasers S-2 pulsed QCL driver),

(6) Grating Module.

c

2018

SA

3

Summary of Contents for ECLK

Page 1: ...External Cavity Laser Kit User s Manual Version number 1 0 6 c 2018 ALPES LASERS SA ...

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Page 3: ... products will be replaced during the 2 years following delivery 3 All other claims such as purchase refund product reconditioning or damage of any nature be it direct indirect or consequential are expressly ousted 4 The customer is aware of laser products being devices with a statistical rate of failure Depending on the use made of this product it is the customer s respon sibility to use caution ...

Page 4: ...e been applied since the publication of version 1 0 Date of publication Version number Changes 16 09 2015 1 0 1 Added fig 2 5 and related information 25 09 2015 1 0 2 Fixed caption of fig 1 2 14 10 2015 1 0 3 Added fig 1 1 11 3 2016 1 0 4 Change of address 12 9 2016 1 0 5 Added Fig 2 1 3 26 2018 1 0 6 Added 2 1 changed drawing to reflect internal part changes iv ECLK user s manual v1 0 6 ...

Page 5: ...e content of each chapter CAUTION All personnel must read and understand this manual before attempting to operate ALPES LASERS QCLs or electronic device Failure to follow safety instructions could result in death or serious injury Chapter Content Safety Warnings and Safety instructions 1 Description General description of the product 2 Operation Operation guide 3 Maintenance Installation and align...

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Page 7: ...R they are explained in more detail in sec tions 3 1 3 2 and 3 3 The access to potentially dangerous operations is not controlled and is left to the supervision of the owner IMPORTANT Any personnel working directly or in the surroundings of ALPES LASERS equipment must read carefully and understand the safety issues discussed in this chapter 1 General safety considerations If any of the following c...

Page 8: ... may result in minor or moderate injury or property damage The use of IMPORTANT and Note notations is defined below IMPORTANT Contains instructions or practices associated with maintenance and operation of the Starter Kit Highlights specific actions or steps to be followed in order to avoid defeating equipment functionality or cause product damage Note contains instructions or practices associated...

Page 9: ...er and warning symbols used in this manual are shown in table 1 general danger electrical hazard LASER radiation hazard safety eyewear mandatory Table 1 Safety symbols most commonly used in the ALPES LASERS user s manual c 2018 SA ix ...

Page 10: ...and skin 3 2 Electrical hazard Work on live electrical circuits must be performed using all appropriate precautions and site specific procedures Those tasks must be performed by qualified service personnel familiar with the wiring schematics of ALPES LASERS electronic equipment only electrical cabinets shall not be accessed during normal operation nor during maintenance tasks DANGER Contact with t...

Page 11: ...ly damaged by moisture fingerprints aerosols or the slightest contact with any abrasive material Gratings should only be handled when necessary and always held by the sides Latex gloves should be worn to prevent oil from fingers from reaching the grating surface Do not attempt to clean a grating other than by blowing off the dust with clean dry air or nitrogen or by using specialized polymer films...

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Page 13: ...4 Grating module 6 2 Operation 7 2 1 Quick Start Guide 7 2 1 1 Unpacking 7 2 1 2 Computer communication 8 2 1 3 Temperature Control 8 2 1 4 Pulser Control 8 2 1 5 Rotation stage Control 8 2 1 6 Laser Operation 9 2 1 7 Optional Alignment Tweak 9 2 2 Installation 9 2 3 Graphical user interface 10 2 3 1 Connection and login 10 2 3 2 Server administration screen 11 2 3 3 Instrument control screen 12 2...

Page 14: ...3 4 Front lens alignment 22 3 5 Grating alignment 22 4 Connectors specifications 25 xiv ECLK user s manual v1 0 6 ...

Page 15: ... center wavelength The gain medium is prepared in form of antireflection AR coated Fabry Perot cavity soldered to an aluminium nitride sub mount and to a copper carrier The temperature is actively regulated by a heatsink assembly that includes a thermoelectric element and water cooling for improved heat dissipation The laser is driven by an Alpes Lasers S 2 pulsed driver The graphical user interfa...

Page 16: ...e two kits In particular the ECLK is compatible with Thorlabs optomechanics for mode hop free tuning Necessary equipement Computer Other recommended equipment For installation of new gain chip mid infrared detector or better yet imaging system For wavelength calibration mid infrared spectrometer e g Fourier Transform Infrared FTIR spectrometer 1 2 System overview The CAD drawing of the system encl...

Page 17: ...vity 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 BM 4 Laser Module 5 Drive Electronics Alpes Lasers S 2 pulsed QCL driver 6 Grating Module c 2018 SA 3 ...

Page 18: ...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 EFL 1 873 mm WD 0 723 mm 10 Focus adjuster and its 11 screws and 12 adjusting knob Thorlabs TLK FM1 moving dist 0 3 mm 13 Contact plate and its 14 screws 15 Front aspheric collimating lens Thorlabs C037TME EFL 1 863 mm WD 0 34 mm 4 ECLK user s manual v1 0 6 ...

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 SA 5 ...

Page 20: ...igure 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 6 ECLK user s manual v1 0 6 ...

Page 21: ...void charging effects Ground yourself and remove carefully the short Be careful to not to hit the rotation stage or any other component in the ECLK Fix the wiring in the minipulser plugs according to the indicated polarity 4 The diffraction grating glued to its frame is dismounted from the grating mod ule and is packaged separately together with the appropriate screws In order to attach the gratin...

Page 22: ... Connect TC 3 to Raspberry Pi with a USB cable The remote control indicator on the TC 3 panel switches on The temperature controller status in the client interface shows ready in green and the actual temperature is displayed on side 2 1 4 Pulser Control 1 Power S 2 pulser The diodes at the bottom of S 2 are blinking 2 Connect S 2 to Raspberry Pi The pulser controller status in the client interface...

Page 23: ...ange than indicated most probably the goniometer cradle or the grating moved from its ideal position and needs to be realigned You can do so at first following the following quick procedure 1 Set the angle to its most optimal value according to the laser data sheet 2 Lower the applied voltage move slightly the goniometer knob underneath the adapter plate and maximize the signal 3 Repeat the proced...

Page 24: ...5000 The login screen should appear in your browser see Fig 2 2 The first time you connect there is only one user registered by default in the sytem with the username admin1 and password 12345 Enter the administrator password and click Login The user admin1 can then create additional user profiles Figure 2 2 Login screen The start screen appears upon successful user identification see Fig 2 3 From...

Page 25: ...load the current wavelength calibration file or upload a new one To select desired angle and wavelength units click the corresponding buttons To set maximum voltage pulse width and duty cycle for the pulse QCL driver enter the desired values in the correponding text boxes and click the Set buttons on the right To create a new user enter the new user name and password in the corresponding text boxe...

Page 26: ...dow Click Upload to upload the file An example of calibration file is shown in Fig 2 6 The file should consist of two columns labeled angle units and wavelength units with a comma separator and should be saved in csv format Units should be specified in square brackets Allowed units are deg and rad for angles and um nm and cm 1 for wave lengths wavenumbers Linear interpolation is used between point...

Page 27: ...g angle in the appropriate text box and click Set To move the grating by a fixed angular step use the Jog function Click on the single and double arrows to rotate the grating by Small or Large angular steps respectively The values of the Small and Large steps can be changed by entering the desired values in the corresponding text boxes Stepwise and sweep motions The rotation stage control offers t...

Page 28: ...Chapter 2 Operation Figure 2 8 Figure 2 9 Figure 2 10 Step wise a and sweep b motion control panels 14 ECLK user s manual v1 0 6 ...

Page 29: ...er nal and Off To select the QCL setpoint enter the desired QCL voltage in the Voltage text box and click Apply at the bottom of the panel Note the Voltage text box is not active in Off mode The measured output voltage and peak current are shown in real time in the pulser control panel In Internal mode the pulse sequence is generated internally by the pulser To specify a pulse sequence fill two of...

Page 30: ...vailable in the shutdown menu Shutdown devices and Power off server Shutdown devices closes communication with the ECLK subsystems but does not power them off Click Power off server to power off the ECLK computer You will need to reboot the server manually to access the external cavity client again 16 ECLK user s manual v1 0 6 ...

Page 31: ...3 1 Figure 3 1 shows schematically the degrees of freedom available on placing the components To install a gain chip in the external cavity system complete the following steps 1 Install the new chip on carrier on the laser module 2 Connect the QCL wires to the pulsed driver pay attention to polarity 3 Install the front and back lenses 4 Remove the rotation stage from the grating module 5 Turn on t...

Page 32: ... a Attach the base module to the bottom part of the enclosure by the three available M6 screws in the positions indicated in Fig 3 2 b Attach the two stainless steel pipe lines for water cooling the inlet outlet direction is arbitrary in the respective sockets Plug the drive wires from the TEC element to the respective intermediate connector Place carefully the temperature sensor into the socket N...

Page 33: ...te manipulation may result in damages to the wire bonds and or to the chip facets There is a very little freedom in positioning the submount in yz plane Attach the carrier vertically by eye If necessary the small anglular freedom can be exploited to achieve a better lens alignment Figure 3 3 Correct ways to hold the laser carrier Pass the drive cables underneath the heatsink assembly and attach th...

Page 34: ...llow any movement The adjuster is attached via an adapter plate to the heatsink assembly using two pairs of M3 screws and spring washers There is a quite large freedom in positioning the adjuster with respect to the adapter plate which allows the lens alignment in the xz plane Do not tighten the screws completely at this moment A coarse geometrical alignment of the back lens follows The adjuster k...

Page 35: ...s Unscrew little bit the adjuster screws half thread is enough and shift gently the lens mount Observe if the beam shape improves with a non axial shift If you do not find any signal the reason can be a large distance of the lens from the laser facet In such a case the intensity of the signal is very small and difficult to track with an insufficiently sensitive detector Untighten the adjuster scre...

Page 36: ...nt The beam has to be parallel to the optical axis in order to go through the output window of the enclosure lid If it is not the case optimize the position of the lens holder appropriately 3 5 Grating alignment Assemble the grating module Attach the goniometer to the base plate with the four available M2 5 screws see Fig 1 4 Attach the adapter plate to the goniometer with the four available M2 sc...

Page 37: ...he grating and the beam in the kit Place the detector facing the front lens Align the goniometer stage appropriately and find the signal Optimize the rotation stage angle in order to maximize the signal Figure 3 6 Schematics of orientation of the grating in the setup the laser beam is shown schematically by the red arrows c 2018 SA 23 ...

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Page 39: ...h regulation valve West Group Needle Valve NV 32 2 Gas purge inlet Serto Hose Nozzle LO CV 1100 4 M5 3 4 Water cooling inlet outlet 2x Serto Quick Coupler for a 4 mm pipe CO KA 205 5 CW operation Radiall BNC female R141 605 000 6 Temperature control Lemo Female 6 pins HGG 1B 306 CLLP 7 Pulsed operation FCT DB9 female FWDR09S 8 hot glued lid 25 ...

Page 40: ... sub connector to Alpes Laser Minipulser S 2 driving the gain chip Pin Signal Pin Signal 1 Ground 6 RS232 Rx 2 Ground 7 RS232 Tx 3 Ground 8 Sync Output TTL 3 3 V 4 Not connected 9 External Modulation Input TTL 5 Power Supply Input 9 20 V 26 ECLK user s manual v1 0 6 ...

Page 41: ...on of pins of the lemo connector to TEC controller Pin Signal Pin Signal 1 Temp sensor current 4 Temp sensor current 2 Temp sensor sense 5 Peltier element black 3 Temp sensor sense 6 Peltier element red c 2018 SA 27 ...

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