Analyzer enables high resolution measurements of 3-µm lasers
The AQ6376 is a bench-top analyzer that uses dispersive spectroscopy and supports the 3-µm band.
An optical spectrum analyzer resolves the wavelength components of optical devices such as semiconductor lasers and fiber lasers in order to assess their properties. The AQ6376 will help to improve the efficiency of 3-µm optical devices and accelerate their adoption in fields such as environmental measurement and medicine.
In recent years, laser absorption spectroscopy has entered wide use in the environmental measurement field for the detection of gases such as carbon oxides (COx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and hydrocarbon gas (CxHy). Although 2-µm semiconductor lasers have mainly been used as the optical source in such applications, there is an increasing need for 3-µm lasers because these gases absorb more light at longer wavelengths. Optical lasers are also being gradually introduced in the medical field, where the need to analyze substances that contain water is driving demand for 3-µm fiber lasers. Accordingly, there is a growing need for a tool that can measure optical spectra in the 3-µm band.
There are already some devices that can measure optical spectra in the 3-µm band, including interferometer-type measuring instruments and large-scale measuring systems that use spectrometers but they have disadvantages such as narrow dynamic range and low wavelength resolution that lessen measurement accuracy.
Drawing on the company’s expertise in dispersive spectroscopy, Yokogawa has developed the AQ6376 to perform 3-µm band mid-infrared measurements.
The AQ6376 has a dynamic range of 80 dB and a close-in dynamic range of 55 dB, which are 10,000 times and 300 times greater, respectively, than what is possible when using an interferometer-type instrument in the 3-µm band.
The AQ6376 claims an industry-best wavelength resolution of 100 pm, three times that of an interferometer-type measuring instrument in the 3-µm band.
The AQ6376 comes with two additional enhancements. One is a function that purges water vapor trapped in a spectroscope that can suppress the absorption of light with a certain wavelength. The other is a function that reduces the effect of high-order diffracted light whose wavelengths are 2–3 times that of incident light, a problem which all spectroscopes have due to their design principle.
The AQ6376 supports applications for the emission spectrum measurement using semiconductor, fiber, and other wide-wavelength lasers as well as measurement of wavelength transmission characteristics for optical filters such as a fiber Bragg grating (FBG).
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