Servo Controller

(LB1005 product line sold to New Focus April 2008)

PPC’s high-speed servo controller was a highly reliable, general-purpose instrument that made stabilizing the frequency or amplitude of lasers easy and intuitive. Designed specifically for laser locking, the proportional integral (P-I) controller had an intuitive front panel and easy-to-use analog interface for the independent control of frequency, overall servo gain, and low-frequency gain limit. This flexibility enabled it to cascade with other units for the high-speed control of diode lasers using both piezo-electric transducers and current modulation inputs.

Multiple functionality enabled the LB1005 servo controller to be used in a variety of demanding applications including atom/ion trapping, Bose-Einstein condensation, frequency metrology, quantum optics, and the high-speed stabilization, synchronization, and control of lasers.

image of a string of six ytterbium ions

Ion Trapping

The LB1005 servo controller was used to take this image of a string of six ytterbium ions (171Yb+) fluorescing at 369.5 nm and 935 nm. A laser at 739 nm was locked to an iodine spectrometer and a transfer cavity before doubling to 369.5 nm. The 935-nm laser was locked in common to the transfer cavity.

Image courtesy of C.R. Monroe, Univ. of Michigan.

Applications

Frequency and amplitude stabilization of lasers
Atom/ion trapping, including BEC
Frequency metrology
Quantum optics
Laser synchronization