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Automation of Laboratory Equipment for

Characterization of a Fiber Laser

ARTICLE · MARCH 2015

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6 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:

Guillermo Huerta-Cuellar Ricardo Sevilla-Escoboza

University of Guadalajara University of Guadalajara
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Rider Jaimes-Reategui Roger Chiu-Zarate

University of Guadalajara University of Guadalajara
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Available from: Ricardo Sevilla-Escoboza

Retrieved on: 28 September 2015
 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3, March 2015)
Automation of Laboratory Equipment for Characterization of a
Fiber Laser
Huerta-Cuellar G.1, Sevilla-Escoboza J. R.2, Echenausía-Monroy J. L.3, Vera-Ávila V. P.4, Jaimes-Reátegui R.5,
Chiu-Zárate R.6
1,2,3,4,5,6
Laboratorio de Sistemas Dinámicos y Aplicaciones Ópticas, Centro Universitario de Los Lagos,
Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. Enrique Díaz de León 1144, Paseos de la Montaña, Lagos de Moreno, Jal., 47460, México.
Abstract— In this paper we present the design and
configuration of virtual interface for the purpose of automate
the acquisition and analysis of digital signals from the
response of an erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) through a
GPIB port using the National Instruments Software,
LabVIEW. We automated an Aeroflex 3250 Series Spectrum
Analyzer, a Tektronix AFG3011 Waveform Generator and an
Agilent DSOX3102A Oscilloscope. With the automation of the
instruments above mentioned a characterization of an
erbium-doped fiber laser on power spectra and in the domain
of time will be achieved as well the construction of the
necessaries maps for the total description of the EDFL
dynamic.
Keywords—Characterization, automation, interface,
frequency power spectrum, time series.
I. INTRODUCTION
The National Instrument (NI) programing software,
LabVIEW, is a widely used as an engineering tool. Some
applications of this software ranging from data acquisition
and signal processing [1], instrument control, automation
and validation of test systems, monitoring embedded
systems and control, among others. LabVIEW is not the
only system design software that provides engineers and
scientists the tools needed to create measurement and
control applications. There are other programing softwares
that also provide us with different tools for measurement
and control systems such as MATLAB, but since our
project required the generation of a graphical interface,
which was friendly to the end user and also easy to use.
The last is the reason that we decided to use the National
Instruments Software, without mention that the latter
provides an opportunity to strengthen the system of simple
and practical way without affecting the simplicity with
which it is presented to the end user.
The use of IVI VISA tool of LabVIEW [2] was chosen
for develop the necessary applications for the project
because is not limited to a single type of instruments or
means of communication between these, as it provides a
wide range of pre-developed drivers for use in instruments
and the option to develop their own drivers for any
instrument automation.
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The aim of this project is to show the automation of all
involved the equipment for characterization and differents
phenomenological behaviors encountered in an EDFL. This
project was executed in the Optical Applications and
Dynamics Systems Laboratory in the Centro Universitario
de los Lagos (CULagos), where we used the facilities and
the experimental arrangement used in previous works, as
the fact that noise induces intermittent switches between
coexisting states (attractor hopping phenomenon) [3], a
phenomenological results that shows the behavior of real
systems for which is encountered a noise amount previous
a bifurcation point as an volcanic eruption or heart attack
[4]. Another phenomenological behavior that has been
encountered in the experimental arrangement used for this
work describes the apparition of suddenly rogue waves was
reported [5, 6, 7]. Between others natural phenomena the
EDFL has been used to show the synaptical behavior
between neurons [8, 9]. Moreover of the usual
applications of the EDFL as amplificator in communication
systems an optoelectronic logic gate has been developed,
using our experimental set-up [10]. Behavior showed in the
laser dynamics of the attractor hopping [3] also shows a
Brownian dynamics as shown by G. Huerta-Cuellar et al.
[11] with an original proposal for deterministic Brownian
motion generation.
II. METHODOLOGY
As was mentioned above, during the experiment we
used a Waveform Generator (WFG), a Spectrum Analyzer
(SA) and a Digital Oscilloscope (OS) with their
corresponding GPIB-USB cables, which are the means of
communication between the designed interface and the
equipments. A computer (PC) with the programming
software, LabVIEW in his 2012 version, was used to
establish communication with each one of the instruments
to control.
The experimental setup shown in Fig. 1 consists of a
1560-nm EDFL pumped by a 977-nm laser diode (LD)
(PL980).
 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3, March 2015)
The 4.81-m Fabry-Pérot fiber laser cavity is formed by
an active 88-cm long heavily erbium-doped fiber (EDF)
with a 2.7-μm core diameter and two fiber Bragg gratings
(FBG1 and FBG2) with 0.288-nm and 0.544-nm full
widths on half-magnitude bandwidth, having, respectively,
100% and 95.88% reflectivity at laser wavelength.
Following the set-up description, an optical isolator (OI)
has been arranged so that only allowed laser emission will
be counter propagating referred to pump propagation.
The fiber laser output, after passing through a
wavelength-division multiplexer (WDM), is measured with
a photodiode (PD), which converted the optical signal in an
electrical signal, connected to the OS and to the SA for its
analysis and characterization. All components are
connected by a single-mode fiber laser. In our experiment,
we choose the pump current so that the laser relaxation
oscillation frequency, fr, is about 30 kHz in the absence of
the external signal.
Fig. 1. Experimental setup for EDFL analysis.
III. DEVELOPMENT AND RESULTS
By developing the algorithm to design the virtual
interface, WFG control is performed to define the
frequency and amplitude of the signal that is used for
modulate, which is sent to the LDC. This is an important
part because the response of the EDF depends from the
modulation signal that we decide inject. Otherwise, the
laser output is connected to the digital oscilloscope and to
the spectrum analyzer, that are also controlled by the
virtual interface, by which we can define all kind of
parameters for the correct visualization and analysis of the
obtained data.
488
As first step for achieves the project objective, we
implement all the necessaries drivers for establish
independent communication with each one of the
equipment to control, since the experiment was previously
mounted. The main objective for making this procedure is
generate a driver backup of each instrument and then
incorporate them in a global program that is capable of
control the whole experiment.
In order to achieve this, the driver for the first instrument
developed was the spectrum analyzer, because the
complexity of this was higher than the others ones. The
whole process consist in create the necessary blocks for
establish the remote mode with the instrument and can
control it since the computer. Ones that the correct
communication with the spectrum analyzer was achieved,
we proceed to create his correspondent virtual instrument
which is capable to control each one of the configuration
parameters in the equipment and generate the acquisition of
the data into a pre-defined folder for storage them and use
them for their subsequent analysis.
The creation of any of the virtual instruments that we
used during the experiment consist of different stages,
which are the initialization, where it’s configured the
channels for establish the communication between our
computer and the corresponding instrument, it’s here where
we select the GPIB address of the equipment and we order
to start the remote mode. After that, we pass to the stage of
configuration, where we indicate whole the parameters that
we need for the correct function of the instruments, then
each instrument take his values and fix the corresponding
configuration. It’s also in this part where we indicate to the
instrument (spectrum analyzer and the digital oscilloscope)
the function of data recording and the name of the folder
where this are will be stored.
In case of the spectrum analyzer, we also determine a
function, where this make a search of the maxims peaks of
frequency, the number of peaks is also pre-defined in the
parameter section. In the final interface the user can see 3
different graphics, one which displays the response of
EDFL in the domain in time, other that shows the response
in the spectrum of frequency and the last one displays the
response along the time of the maxims peaks of frequency.
 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3, March 2015)
Fig. 2. Graphic representation of the sweep frequency control.
As was mentioned before, the response of the laser
depend of the modulation frequency (fm) that we inject and
all the parameters are determined since the virtual interface
that the user has access, that is the reason for the creation of
the control shown in the Fig. 2, that describes the function
of the sweep frequency that is applied al the LDC.
Ones that we had created the three virtual instruments
for each one of the equipment, was continued with the
stage of coupling them for create the algorithm capable to
control the whole experiment since the computer and this
way generate the final user interface. The integration of all
the algorithms for the automation is show in Fig. 3 in way
the flowchart.
Fig. 3. Final Algorithm Flowchart.
The final version of the whole process for the
experiment automation is shown in the figure below, where
it is possible to see all the stages previously described such
as the initialization of the instruments, variables capture for
each instrument, configuration of the equipments, data
acquisition, display graphics and data storage for ending
the process.
489
Fig. 4. User Interface where is visible the controls section and the
graph of the maxims peaks of frequency.
The design of the user interface has the whole necessary
controls for establish the complete configuration that the
user needs to operate the experiment, and, as was described
before, the user, besides having the controls for establish
the configuration of the experiment, has three graphs where
can see the response, in real time, of the EDFL. A part of
the user interface is shown in Fig. 4.
On Fig. 4, it can sees the part of the user interface for the
control of the experiment, it means, the whole necessary
controls for determinate the operating mode as well as the
graphic of response of the maxims peaks of frequency
along the time.
Fig. 5. Experimental temporal bifurcation diagram of EDFL.
Fig. 5 shows the experimental bifurcation diagram of the
peak-to-peak laser intensity with the modulation frequency
fm as a control parameter. The implemented LabVIEW
interface was complemented with a switching virtual
interface in order to change the initial condition of the
system. Because the EDFL has a multistate behavior, the
change of initial conditions can provide us all differents
states presents in this system.
 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3, March 2015)
To construct the bifurcation diagram, where the
modulation frequency fm, varies from 0 to 150 kHz and for
each kilohertz there are 50 switches of initial conditions, in
order to find all possible behaviors. For every change of
initial conditions, a time series is generated and it is stored
and processed in order to get the local maxima, which each
point is used to construct the bifurcation diagram. As
mentioned in some previous papers [3, 4, 6, 7]. Since
EDFL is a class-B laser, it is regulated by the main laser
resonance, which appears in the vicinity of fr. One can see
the coexistence of different periodic and chaotic attractors
for certain modulation frequencies, i.e. for fm=99 kHz,
depending on initial conditions, are found period-1 (P1),
period-3 (P3) and period-4 (P4). The P3, P4, and P5
attractors are born and dead in the saddle-node bifurcations
as showed in [3, 6]. The crisis and inverse period-doubling
bifurcations are also seen near fm ≈ 70 kHz and 76 kHz,
respectively, in the same manner that the P3 window within
the chaotic region (chaos) is found close to fm ≈ 58 kHz. In
general, a laser system modulated above its relaxation
oscillation frequency is not so sensitive to pump
modulation as when it is modulated below fr. Such
behavior concerns not only laser systems but also other
nonlinear oscillators.
Fig. 6. a) Visualization in power spectra of the relaxation frequency of
the system in the Spectrum Analyzer, b) Visualization in domain time
of the relaxation frequency of the system in the Digital Oscilloscope.
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In Fig. 6 is shown as can be visualized frequency spectra
and time series in the controlled equipment, spectrum
analyzer and oscilloscope respectively. In the figure 6a) it
is presented the corresponding power spectra at the
relaxation frequency of the system that, as was mentioned
in the former paragraph, is of 30Khz, and in the figure 6b)
it can see 2 signals, the signal (1) correspond to the
modulation signal that is injected at the system and the
signal (2) is the response from the laser in the domain of
time, which also correspond to the relaxation frequency of
the system.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we shown the procedure performed to
monitor laboratory equipment used to realize the
characterization, both time series and power spectrum,
using NI LabVIEW software.
With the realization of this work is controlled an
experimental arrangement for development of basic
science, which is very convenient because the parameters
to be introduced to the experiment and data acquisition is
done automatically. Besides, the time spent capturing
information becomes very short compared to the time spent
on traditional sampling time. Furthermore, the amount and
quality of information that can be obtained with the
automation of equipment will be used to generate graphs
and tables of better quality than would be by conventional
data acquisition methods, as is shown in Fig. 5.
REFERENCES
[1] José Rafael Lajara Vizcaíno, José Pelegrí Sebastián, 2011,
LabView. En, LabView, Entorno Gráfico de Programación, 2a
Edición, Marcombo S.A, pp. 75-240.
[2] National Instruments: IVI..: http://www.ni.com/ivi/ (Consulted: 10
de Abril, 2014).
[3] Huerta-Cuellar, G., Pisarchik, A. N., & Barmenkov, Y. O. (2008).
Experimental characterization of hopping dynamics in a multistable
fiber laser. Physical Review E, 78(3), 035202.
[4] Huerta-Cuellar G., Pisarchik A. N., Kir’yanov A. V., Barmenkov
Yu. O., del Valle H. J., 2009, Prebifurcation noise amplification in a
fiber laser, Physical Review E 79, pp. 036204-036210.
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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3, March 2015)
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