Active Alignment Systems and Tools for Photonics

From motorized fiber positioners to piezo-based scanners, PI offers a range of cutting-edge active optical alignment devices for applications in silicon photonics (SiP), optics manufacturing, data communications, and packaging automation. Firmware-based procedures are used by high-performance controllers to simultaneously optimize a number of inputs and outputs. In the lowest amount of time feasible, integrated procedures enable single-axis alignments up to complicated, multi-axis fiber array positioning. Each system includes a wealth of software that makes setup and integration simple.

PI’s Fast Multi-Channel Photonics Alignment (FMPA) systems are based on a highly specialized digital motion controller (E-712) and a hybrid active alignment mechanism to achieve the required long travel ranges without sacrificing stability, resolution or alignment speed. FMPA is implemented in the E-712 controller’s modular firmware to enable fast, simultaneous alignment and tracking of multichannel couplings in multiple degrees of freedom. The efficient algorithms for first light detection, area scanning, and gradient search guarantee highest throughput in 24/7 operation.

PI‘s hexapod-based photonics alignment systems provide 6 degrees of freedom motion. The hexapod controller has many built-in routines for commands finding first light and optimizing the alignment. An optional analog input can be used with optical power meters. The user-programmable pivot point is a significant advantage – it can be set to any location, for example the tip of a fiber, the waist of a beam or the surface of a SiP wafer.

Modular alignment engines are based on a combination of linear stages and goniometers for rotation. In the case of the F-131, a Piezo XYZ scanner is mounted on an XYZ motorized stage for long travel. The piezo scanner allows for ultra-fast scanning and alignment, or for mapping the output characteristics of an optical device in fractions of a second.