Experiments to Control Atom Number and Phase-Space Density in ...
Experiments to Control Atom Number and Phase-Space Density in ...
Experiments to Control Atom Number and Phase-Space Density in ...
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ization of the beam. The second cube reflects a fixed amount of power. Fluctuations<br />
<strong>in</strong> this power can be measured with the pho<strong>to</strong>diode <strong>and</strong> fed back <strong>to</strong> an AOM used <strong>to</strong><br />
stabilize the power.<br />
7.4 Computer <strong>Control</strong> <strong>and</strong> Data Acquisition<br />
The computer control <strong>and</strong> data acquisition software <strong>and</strong> hardware is an updated<br />
version of the rubidium system. A newer version of <strong>Control</strong>, a Visual C++ program<br />
orig<strong>in</strong>ally written by Florian Schreck, a former postdoc<strong>to</strong>ral scholar, offers precision<br />
tim<strong>in</strong>g of 500 ns of the experimental sequence, <strong>and</strong> a user-friendly graphical <strong>in</strong>terface.<br />
<strong>Control</strong> communicates with three different National Instruments cards, NI6533, NI6733<br />
<strong>and</strong> NI PCI-GPIB. It generates a waveform of the experimental sequence <strong>and</strong> sends the<br />
<strong>in</strong>fromation as 25 bit data <strong>to</strong> the NI cards. The first 16 bits are used for data, the next<br />
8 address the different outputs <strong>and</strong> the last bit is used as a strobe bit <strong>to</strong> synchronize<br />
the outputs. This is necessary <strong>to</strong> achieve a tim<strong>in</strong>g precision of 500 ns. All 25 bits from<br />
<strong>Control</strong> are sent <strong>to</strong> all of the outputs, however, only the one with the match<strong>in</strong>g address<br />
will respond.<br />
The first of the NI cards (NI6533) controls 16 analog outs, 32 digital outs <strong>and</strong><br />
9 direct digital synthesizer (DDS) boards. The output from the NI card first goes <strong>to</strong> a<br />
bus driver/buffer card. Here the signal is amplified <strong>and</strong> connected <strong>to</strong> flat ribbon cables,<br />
that connect <strong>to</strong> the home-built digital/analog out cards <strong>and</strong> the DDS. The analog <strong>and</strong><br />
digital out cards from the rubidium experiment have <strong>to</strong> be modified <strong>to</strong> allow for the<br />
<strong>in</strong>creased tim<strong>in</strong>g precision. The design of these boards can be found at [108]. The setup<br />
currently has two analog out cards, each with 8 channels per board, <strong>and</strong> two digital out<br />
cards with 16 digital outs each. The analog boards provide an output voltage between<br />
−10 V <strong>and</strong> +10 V, the digital outs work as TTL signals with a high of around 3.5 V. In<br />
addition 9 DDS boards are currently <strong>in</strong>stalled. These are based on the AD9852 DDS IC<br />
<strong>and</strong> provide frequencies up <strong>to</strong> 135 MHz. A commercial frequency genera<strong>to</strong>r (Wavetek<br />
2407) provides a 300 MHz reference signal <strong>to</strong> the DDS boards. The DDS are used as<br />
frequency sources for the AOMs.<br />
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