Agilent Announces New Optical Test Equipment

April 1, 2010 – Agilent Technologies Inc. has announced new compact tunable lasers and a multimode fiber version of its multichannel optical attenuator. These additions to the 77-Series optical test instruments enable more cost-effective transmission system verification and optical transceiver manufacturing test.

The N7711A and N7714A tunable lasers are single- and four-port versions, available with C-band or L-band wavelength coverage. Their narrow linewidth and offset grid fine-tuning capability make them suitable for loading of the latest transmission systems. Owners of the company’s Lightwave measurement system can take advantage of the new 81950A tunable laser module, which offers the same features as the N7711A and plugs into the 8163B and 8164B mainframes.

The new multimode-fiber variable optical attenuator is available in two- and four-channel versions under the product numbers N7766A and N7768A. Both feature a power-monitored attenuator assembly with optimal mode propagation. Narrow test margins and fast attenuation setting render the instruments suitable for testing parallel optics and transceivers for data communication networks.

Targeted for high test throughput, low cost per channel and a narrow footprint, all products in the 77-Series are built on a common platform and a common PC-based user interface. A complete set of control interfaces including LAN, USB2.0 and GPIB simplifies integration with manufacturing control systems. Code-compatible with the proprietary Lightwave measurement system, the new generation of instruments can serve as plug-in replacements in existing test solutions.

Benefits of the N7711A single-port and N7714A four-port tunable lasers and the 81950A tunable laser module include a compact instrument format, adjustability to any wavelength grid (ITU-T 100 GHz, 50 GHz, 25 GHz and arbitrary grids), a narrow linewidth of <100 kHz and offset-grid tuning greater than ±6 GHz. Suitable for coherent mixing applications and new complex modulation formats, they deliver up to 13-dBm output power, with a 6-dB power adjustment range. Benefits of the N7766A and N7768A multimode-fiber multichannel optical attenuators include two or four parallel-operating power-monitored optical attenuators per instrument, a design for best mode distribution handling with 50/125-µm and 62.5/125-µm multimode fibers, and 100-ms attenuation setting over a >35-dB range.

All models in the series share low hardware overhead, a built-in international power supply and plug-and-play drivers.

For more information visit Agilent Technologies.