N7700A Photonic Application Suite

N7700A Photonic Application Suite

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The N7700A Photonic Application Suite is a collection of advanced and basic software tools for making optical measurements, controlling fiberoptic instruments, and analyzing measurement results.

Key elements:

  • N7700A Package Manager: Select, install and maintain N7700A software packages
  • Main Package: Analyze results in a powerful Viewer, save and export to common file formats and tools
  • IL Engine: Measure IL vs. wavelength with a tunable laser and power meters
  • Fast Spectral Loss Engine: Calibrate and adjust devices with the fast spectral loss engine at repetition rates up to 10x faster than the IL engine
  • IL&PDL Engine: Measure IL and PDL vs. wavelength with the advanced single-sweep Mueller method; results now including responsivity for receiver devices with integrated photodiodes, polarization extinction ratio and return loss
  • Polarization Navigator: Use N778x instruments for polarization analysis and control, including PMD measurements
  • Drivers, firmware, documents, N77xx Viewer: Keep equipment and guides up to date
  • COM Automation Interface: This allows easy integration of the test station into the production work flow. External control of the system from software platforms like VEE, LabView, Matlab, etc. is easily realized. Programming examples are included in the installation.

Newest features:

  • Support for 81606A, 81607A, and 81608A, and 81602A tunable lasers
  • Much faster IL/PDL measurements
  • FSIL provides power range stitching for greater dynamic range
  • FSIL adds support of N7747A and N7748A high-sensitivity power meters
  • Adapted for Windows 10 and 64-bit programming environments

The N7700A Package Manager

The N7700A Photonic Application Suite is available for download from the following link: www.keysight.com/find/N7700.

The setup installation provides the N7700A Package Manager. This shows any packages and necessary software prerequisites installed or downloaded on the computer and the packages and updates available from the download site. Use this to install and maintain your desired configuration.

Many elements can be permanently installed and used without charge. Packages requir­ing a license can be used immediately for up to 14 days and a free 30-day evaluation license can be quickly downloaded for extended testing before purchasing a license.

The N7700A Main Package is distributed free and provides the basis for the measurement engines and a powerful File Viewer program for analyzing measurement data. It has been designed for sharing measurement results throughout entire development teams or manufacturing groups. The library functions in this package also allow your programs to read and save data in the .omr file format for analysis with the File Viewer.

Viewer features include:

  • Display and overlay of traces from multiple channels and multiple measurement files
  • Scale switching between wavelength and frequency
  • Display of tabular analysis
  • Markers, zooming and analysis features of associated measurement engines
  • File loading, saving and data export
  • Direct launching of Excel and Matlab with data

The N7700A IL/PDL Engine package measures passive optical components and optical-to-electrical devices like inte­grated receivers with an advanced routine to determine the dependence on wave­length and polarization for one or multiple ports. The unique single-sweep Mueller Matrix method reduces measurement time and is very robust against environmental disturbance like fiber movement and temperature drift, while maintaining high dynamic range, wavelength accuracy and freedom from bandwidth-limited distortions.

In addition to the measured IL and PDL traces, the Mueller Matrix 1st-row data can be exported and analyzed to provide the polarization resolved IL traces for the device axes (TE/TM). The same applies to measuring the responsivity of receiver devices with photocurrent output.

Required instruments:

  • One or more continuous-sweep tunable lasers and mainframe: 81606A, 81607A, 81608A, 81602A, 81600B or earlier similar modules, 81960A, 81940A, 81980A
  • N7786B fast switching polarization synthesizer (including N7786-61601 trigger adapter cable)
  • One or more N7744A or N7745A multiport optical power meters or 81636B power sensor module

 

Optional instruments (see page 7):

81595B switch for multi-band

81610A return loss module

N7745A-E02 photocurrent meter

One or more B2901A, B2902A, B2911A or B2912A source/measure unit (and an N1294A Opt 031 GPIO-BNC trigger adapter and BNC T-adapter for each SMU)

 

The IL/PDL Engine also supports automated switching of multiple lasers for extended wavelength range.

Polarization averaged return loss can be measured at the same time.

Reference measurements from one power meter port for multiple ports, normalized for individual detector responsivity or reference from each port directly.

Measurements can be easily automated with the engine’s COM interface.

Devices with integrated photodiodes, like coherent receivers (ICR) can also be measured with the special N7745A-E02 with photocurrent inputs or B2900A Series source/measure unit in the same setup. The software engine will determine spectra of photocurrent and wavelength responsivity as well as TE vs. TM resolution. A bias voltage can also be applied to the photodiodes.

For devices with high polarization dependence like polarization beamsplitters and ICR for polarization-multiplexed signals, an additional routine for accurately measuring PER beyond 20 dB is included.

IL/PDL License available for purchase as N7700A-100.