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Silicon photonics

The Silicon Photonics extension package for Measmatic provides a set of tests and Python devices for optical measurements on photonic integrated circuits. The tests control tunable lasers, optical power meters, optical switches, variable optical attenuators and polarization controllers and support fiber alignment on probe stations with motorized fiber positioners.

🟢 Included tests#

Tunable laser#

  • Tunable laser on: Switches a tunable laser on with the given wavelength and output power.
  • Tunable laser off: Switches a tunable laser off.
  • Wavelength sweep: Sweeps the wavelength of a tunable laser from a start to a stop wavelength and optionally reads the optical power at each wavelength with an optical power meter.

Optical power meter#

  • Read optical power: Reads the optical power from an optical power meter channel.
  • Set output mode: Sets the mode of the analog output of an optical power meter.

Optical switch#

  • OSX100 Optical Switch: Switches to the specified channel of a Santec OSX-100 optical switch. Channels 1 to 12 are the optical channels at the front of the device, channel 0 disconnects all channels.

EXFO CTP10#

  • CTP10 laser on: Switches the laser source controlled by an EXFO CTP10 on.
  • CTP10 laser off: Switches the laser source controlled by an EXFO CTP10 off.
  • CTP10 read intensity: Takes a reading from the specified sensor of an EXFO CTP10.
  • CTP10 select FBC TLS in: Selects the port that is used as input of the tunable laser connected to a CTP10 FBC module.
  • CTP10 wavelength sweep: Performs a wavelength sweep measurement with an EXFO CTP10.

EXFO FTBx-3500#

  • EXFO FTBx-3500 set attenuation: Sets the attenuation of an EXFO FTBx-3500 variable optical attenuator.
  • EXFO FTBx-3500 set wavelength: Sets the wavelength of an EXFO FTBx-3500 variable optical attenuator.

Novoptel EPS1000 polarizer#

  • Novoptel polarizer configuration: Sets the configuration of a Novoptel EPS1000 polarization controller.
  • Novoptel polarizer read: Reads the register with the given address from a Novoptel EPS1000.
  • Novoptel polarizer write: Writes the given value to the register with the given address of a Novoptel EPS1000 and reads it back.

Fiber positioning#

  • Fiber alignment: Aligns the fibers of the motorized fiber positioners on an MPI SENTIO probe station (fast alignment and gradient search).
  • Fiber site stepping: Steps through all positioner locations defined for each motorized fiber positioner on an MPI SENTIO probe station.

Keysight Photonic Application Suite#

  • Keysight PAS: Triggers the Keysight Photonic Application Suite (PAS) server to perform a sweep and visualizes the acquired data.

🟢 Included Python devices#

Device Category Description
Keysight N777-C series Tunable laser Keysight N777-C series tunable laser (TCP/IP)
Chromatune SuperK Tunable laser NKT Photonics Chromatune SuperK tunable laser (TCP/IP)
Keysight N774-C series Optical power meter Keysight N774-C series optical power meter with 2, 4 or 8 channels (TCP/IP)
Santec OSX-100 series Optical switch Santec OSX-100 series optical switch (TCP/IP)

Table: Python devices of the Silicon Photonics extension package

The EXFO CTP10, the EXFO FTBx-3500 and the Novoptel EPS1000 are controlled through the Generic instrument device that is part of the standard Measmatic installation.

âš™ Setup#

Info

The package file will be made available for download after purchase.

Install the package file (*.mmpkg) with the package manager on the system where Measmatic is installed (see Overview→Setup for more information on how to install an extension package).

The Keysight PAS test requires the Keysight Photonic Application Suite to be installed on the Measmatic system and the Python package pywin32 to be installed in the Measmatic Python environment.

🧰 Usage#

After the extension package is installed, the tests can be found in the test library view under the category Silicon Photonics. Before running the tests, add the required devices in the Device manager and connect them:

  • Tunable laser and optical power meter tests use the devices of the categories Tunable laser and Optical power meter.
  • The OSX100 Optical Switch test uses a Santec OSX-100 series optical switch device.
  • The EXFO CTP10, EXFO FTBx-3500 and Novoptel polarizer tests use a Generic instrument device with the TCP/IP connection of the respective instrument.
  • The fiber positioning tests use a probe station device of the category Prober, for example the ATV WaferPilot device for MPI SENTIO probe stations.