Hannover 2013 – wissenschaftliches Programm
Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe
Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 56: Poster III
Q 56.78: Poster
Donnerstag, 21. März 2013, 16:00–18:30, Empore Lichthof
Timing control system for cold atom experiments based on a Cortex ARM platform — •Daniel Mayer1, Felix Schmidt1, Carsten Lippe1, Tobias Lausch1, Nicolas Spethmann1,2, and Artur Widera1 — 1Fachbereich Physik, TU Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Str. 46, 67663 Kaiserslautern — 2Department of Physics, University of California Berkley, California, 94720 USA
Precise timing of laser pulses or magnetic fields, for example, are crucial in experiments working with ultracold atoms. We present a timing system featuring a time resolution of .1 microseconds, minimal flank spacing of 1 microsecond, and up to several hundred digital channels, based on standard Cortex ARM processors on a cheap LPC-Expresso platform. The software frontend to create the sequence is programmed in python using QtGui. In order enable maximum automation of the experiment, the software offers a control panel to create basic variables and functions for any repetition of a sequence. Furthermore a small web-server programmed in cpp provides access to the basic functionality of the hardware system. Once created, the sequence is transferred to a master processor, which distributes the signal to eight slave processors, each having 32 digital channels. All processors are locked to a Rb frequency standard, which provides exact relative timing between them and allows for a scalable number of slaves. Additionally the hardware offers a manual mode in order obtain quasi-real-time control over any connected device.
The poster will present details of the hardware design as well as the basic software used to control the timing system.