Note : a simple laser shutter with protective shielding for beam powers up to 1 W

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Colquhoun, Craig D. and Di Carli, Andrea and Kuhr, Stefan and Haller, Elmar (2018) Note : a simple laser shutter with protective shielding for beam powers up to 1 W. Review of Scientific Instruments, 89 (12). 126102. ISSN 0034-6748 (https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5053212)

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Abstract

We present the design of an inexpensive and reliable mechanical laser shutter and its electronic driver. A camera diaphragm shutter unit with several sets of blades is utilized to provide fast blocking of laser light and protective shielding of the shutter mechanism up to a laser beam power of 1 W. The driver unit is based on an Arduino microcontroller with a motor-shield. Our objective was to strongly reduce construction effort and expenditure by limiting ourselves to a small number of modular parts, which are readily available. We measured opening and closing durations of less than 800 µs, and a timing jitter of less than 25 µs for the fastest set of blades. No degradation of the shutter performance was observed over 5·10^4 cycles.

ORCID iDs

Colquhoun, Craig D. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3682-2607, Di Carli, Andrea ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0377-6886, Kuhr, Stefan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8386-5357 and Haller, Elmar ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7951-1721;
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