Random noise can help to improve synchronisation of excimer laser pulses

Recently, we have reported on a compact microcontroller-based unit developed to accurately synchronize excimer laser pulses (Mingesz et al. 2012 Fluct. Noise Lett. 11, 1240007 (doi:10.1142/S021947751240007X)). We have shown that dithering based on random jitter noise plus pseudorandom numbers can be used in the digital control system to radically reduce the long-term drift of the laser pulse from the trigger and to improve the accuracy of the synchronization. In this update paper, we present our new experimental results obtained by the use of the delay-controller unit to tune the timing of a KrF excimer laser as an addition to our previous numerical simulation results. The hardware was interfaced to the laser using optical signal paths in order to reduce sensitivity to electromagnetic interference and the control algorithm tested by simulations was applied in the experiments. We have found that the system is able to reduce the delay uncertainty very close to the theoretical limit and pe...

近期，我们曾报道一款基于微控制器（microcontroller）的紧凑型装置，其研发目标为实现准分子激光（excimer laser）脉冲的精准同步（Mingesz等，2012，《波动与噪声快报》，第11卷，1240007，DOI:10.1142/S021947751240007X）。我们已证实，在数字控制系统中采用基于随机抖动噪声与伪随机数的抖动调控方法，可从根本上降低激光脉冲相对于触发信号的长期漂移，并提升同步精度。在本篇更新研究论文中，我们在既往数值模拟结果的基础上，补充展示了利用该延迟控制单元调控氟化氪（KrF）准分子激光时序所获得的全新实验结果。为降低对电磁干扰的敏感性，本装置的硬件通过光信号通路与激光器实现对接，并将经仿真验证的控制算法应用于本次实验。本研究发现，该系统可将延迟不确定度降低至极为接近理论极限的水平，且...