title: Random noise can help to improve synchronization of excimer laser pulses.
abstract: 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 performs well in real applications. The simple, compact and flexible system is universal enough to also be used in various multidisciplinary applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Technical Informatics , University of Szeged , Árpád tér 2, Szeged 6720, Hungary.
authors.forename: Róbert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mingesz
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Physics , University of Szeged , Dóm tér 9, Szeged 6720, Hungary.
authors.forename: Angéla
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barna
authors.affiliation: Department of Technical Informatics , University of Szeged , Árpád tér 2, Szeged 6720, Hungary.
authors.forename: Zoltán
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6570-2685
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gingl
authors.affiliation: Department of Technical Informatics , University of Szeged , Árpád tér 2, Szeged 6720, Hungary.
authors.forename: János
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mellár
keywords: active timing control; dithering; excimer laser; jitter noise; programmable delay