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Review of Scientific Instruments / Volume 82 / Issue 12 / ARTICLES / Optics; Atoms and Molecules; Spectroscopy; Photon Detectors

Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 123108 (2011); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3669783 (6 pages)

Pulsed laser noise analysis and pump-probe signal detection with a data acquisition card

Christopher A. Werley, Stephanie M. Teo, and Keith A. Nelson

Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

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(Received 14 October 2011; accepted 26 November 2011; published online 16 December 2011)

A photodiode and data acquisition card whose sampling clock is synchronized to the repetition rate of a laser are used to measure the energy of each laser pulse. Simple analysis of the data yields the noise spectrum from very low frequencies up to half the repetition rate and quantifies the pulse energy distribution. When two photodiodes for balanced detection are used in combination with an optical modulator, the technique is capable of detecting very weak pump-probe signals (ΔI/I0 ∼ 10−5 at 1 kHz), with a sensitivity that is competitive with a lock-in amplifier. Detection with the data acquisition card is versatile and offers many advantages including full quantification of noise during each stage of signal processing, arbitrary digital filtering in silico after data collection is complete, direct readout of percent signal modulation, and easy adaptation for fast scanning of delay between pump and probe.

© 2011 American Institute of Physics

Article Outline

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
  3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
    1. Signal processing and noise
    2. Comparison with a lock-in amplifier
    3. Rapid scanning
    4. Differential chopping
  4. CONCLUSIONS

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

data acquisition, measurement by laser beam, optical modulation, optical pumping, optical signal detection, photodetectors, photodiodes, signal sampling, synchronisation

PACS

  • 42.62.Eh

    Metrological applications; optical frequency synthesizers for precision spectroscopy

  • 85.60.Dw

    Photodiodes; phototransistors; photoresistors

  • 42.79.Hp

    Optical processors, correlators, and modulators

  • 32.80.Xx

    Level crossing and optical pumping

  • 85.60.Gz

    Photodetectors (including infrared and CCD detectors)

  • 84.40.Ua

    Telecommunications: signal transmission and processing; communication satellites

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3669783

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0034-6748 (print)  
1089-7623 (online)

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Institute of Physics

For access to fully linked references, you need to log in.
    O. B. Wright, B. Perrin, O. Matsuda, and V. E. Gusev, Phys. Rev. B 78, 024303 (2008).


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