Short-Pulse / High-Current Pulsed Laser Diode Driver; 9 Amps; 0.5 Nanoseconds to CW; Integrated Butterfly Mount

Product Overview:

High Power Pulsed Driver for Seed Pumping Applications

Designed for seed laser pumping applications, these laser diode pulse control electronics and mounting modules are optimized for high performance, high power pulsing from single-shot to CW output. With pulse width lengths as narrow as 0.5 nanoseconds, these complete control and mounting modules deliver precision pulses which are generated internally by an on-board pulse generator, or on demand from your external TTL signal generator.

Laser Diode Safety and Control Features

These pulse drivers offer integrated laser diode protection to ensure that your laser is protected at all times. They include an efficient TEC controller which keeps the laser delivering a highly stable output and protects it from thermal damage. A USB interface and graphical user interface offers the user complete control of the pulsing parameters. The user has control of amplitude, pulse width, rep. rate, temperature set point, current / temperature limits and more.

Flexible Laser Diode Pulse Generation and Output Synchronization

These drivers offer the user the flexibility to choose from three different pulse generation sources. The internal pulse generator; an external trigger source; or an external trigger source can be used to activate the internal pulse generator. When using an external trigger source, the input pulse trigger is a TTL/LVTTL input voltage through an SMA connector. The input voltage range for the external trigger is 0 ~ 3.3 Volts. These units also provide the user with a sync-out port which allows synchronization of the driver to related test equipment. This SMA output port delivers an LVTTL copy of the CC-S logical driving signal.

Pin Configurations

The CCS-UHP can be ordered for any butterfly package pin configuration. Because impedance matching is a critical factor in delivering clean high speed pulse performance, the CCS-UHP unit is pre-set for your laser diode's pin configuration. The standard default model is for a Type-1 pin configuration. Please refer to the image carousel above to view available pin settings.

Pre-Set Impedance Matching Improves Laser Diode Pulse Performance

When the impedance from the pulsed current source PCB is not properly matched to the butterfly package pins, significant pulse degradation can occur. This is often seen as distortion of the laser output pulses and/or overshoot of the pulses. The CCS unit is designed to reduce and/or eliminate this pulse degradation by matching the nominal impedance of the butterfly packaged laser diode with the pulse transmission line. Current sources inherently have a high output impedance and laser diodes have very low impedance. The most important requirement of proper impedance matching is matching the impedance of the load to the impedance of the transmission line. The inductance of laser diodes ranges from a few nanohenries to tens of nanohenries. From inductance theory, 𝑑𝑖/𝑑𝑡 is the rate of change in current over a specific period in amperes per second. The voltage increases with the inductance and with the rate of the change of the current. Energy stored in the inductor's magnetic fields during the pulse has to be released when the pulse ends. This creates a voltage, which in turn creates a new current, which in turn creates a new magnetic field on the transmission path. This creates a “loop” which manifests as “ringing” on the pulse waveform and on other distortions to the pulse shape. The CCS current output trasmission path has been carefully designed to match the current source impedance to the butterfly packaged laser diode.