High-power pulsed lasers drive many science and engineering experiments in spectroscopy, metrology, quantum information, atomic physics, and materials research. To perform these experiments reliably and consistently, researchers need to control pulsed lasers with high accuracy, great flexibility, and tight timing. This is where Tektronix arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs) with high sampling rates get the job done.
Create Waveforms to Induce and Fine-Tune Effects
Tek AWGs give scientists and engineers the ability to generate fast voltage pulses of all kinds of shapes (rectangular, exponential, linear and non-linear frequency modulated chirps, gaussian, and custom-defined). By generating high-resolution and wide-bandwidth signals on one or more synchronized channels, Tek AWGs can drive laser diodes or electro-optical modulators with superior fidelity and accuracy, allowing them to create realistic and complex signal scenarios that phase-align directed energy streams, induce quantum effects in new materials, and fine-tune chemical reactions, among other conditions.
Inject Interference for Rigorous Testing Under Stress
Tek AWGs include SourceXpress software for controlling the AWG instruments, giving users extensive signal creation functionality and fine definition of pulse shape, duration, frequency, amplitude, phase, and modulation (Fig. 1). Additionally, Tek AWGs empower users to inject noise, jitter, interference, and distortion into their signals to test how well their laser system performs under these stressors. This gives users clear metrics on the robustness and operational limits of their system.
