Comparison of Control Methods in a Frequency Stabilized Laser

摘要

The purpose of this research is to compare two types of control methods that can be used to frequency stabilize a laser. The first method uses a single piezoelectric transducer (PZT) to control the cavity length of a helium-neon laser. The second method employs dual PZT controllers of different lengths so that a fast response time can be achieved with the benefit of a large dynamic range. Two variations of the first method are compared to the second method. The first variation uses an integrator with gain as a compensator in electronic feedback control loop and is designed using steady state analysis. The second variation uses a more sophisticated compensator that is designed using frequency analysis. Frequency analysis is also used in the compensator design for the second method. Each compensator is tested in a laser control loop and the results of each method are compared. (Author)