Laser Driving Electronics

Apart from a well-engineered optomechanical design and the integrated laser diode, the most important part of a tunable diode laser system is its driving electronics, which is responsible for getting the most out of a laser system.

Wide mode-hop-free tuning with Littrow setups requires a well-defined interplay between piezo actuator and current driver. Drifts of the laser diode current, the temperature or the piezo voltage determine the drift of the laser frequency and the stability against mode-hopping. Noise on any of these outputs increases the laser linewidth. The digital DLC pro represents the latest stage of development of laser control electronics. Its noise and drift properties are even better than the well-established and widely used, now obsolete, electronics SYS DC 110.

With the DLC pro the convenience in operating the laser systems reaches new levels: Not only due to the touch screen, but also due to the possibility for remote control via PC. Either the provided GUI or a command language may be used to control DLC pro driven laser systems from a central control computer or a desktop computer outside the laboratory.

TOPTICA also provides a number of electronic modules for locking laser systems, e.g. FALC pro and PDH/DLC pro for DLC pro and analog modules for extending the still widely used analog electronics DC 110.