Buying Optical Delay Lines

See us at SPIE Photonics West 2025 in San Francisco, January 25–30 (booth 3359)!

The APE ScanDelay is a variable optical delay line, allowing the introduction of a well-defined time delay into an optical path – for example, for pump–probe measurements. The delay is periodically controlled by a fast scanning shaker at a frequency of up to 20 Hz.

The heart of APE’s optical delay line series is a special linear translation stage that is supplied together with appropriate control and drive electronics. The linear drive has been designed especially for optical applications. It combines low moving mass with compactness, reaching a high speed, as well as high precision and resolution. The delay drive has frictionless movement, a large and precise travel range, and it allows for very small displacements without any stick-slip-effects.

The control electronic contains the motion driver and a quartz stabilized signal synthesizer. It can be synchronized with an external clock for a precise, phase-locked scanner movement.

See us at SPIE Photonics West 2025 in San Francisco, January 25–30 (booth 627, 827)!

Ready-to-use optical delay lines manufactured by Thorlabs include the drive system necessary for computer-controlled variation of optical path lengths. With delays up to 4,000 ps and time resolution down to 0.67 fs, these systems compliment our family of ultrafast optics and laser systems.

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K2, by UltraFast Innovations (UFI®), is a pulse delay unit specially designed for the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft X-ray region, where particularly high precision and stability are required. A two-segment mirror sends IR pulses and lower divergent XUV/soft X-ray pulses to a common focus with an interferometrically adjustable precise time delay. This allows temporally resolved experiments with pumping systems of interest either with the XUV/soft X-ray pulse and probe it with the IR or vice-versa. Based on the nature of e.g., attosecond pulses generated in the XUV/soft X-ray range by high harmonic generation (HHG), this offers state-of-the-art highest temporal resolution for your experiments.

Our precise variable optical delay line is based on our unique optical alignment technology with up to 50, 100, 200 or 400 mm air path variation, corresponding to optical delays of up to 165, 330, 660, and 1300 ps, respectively. Both electrical and manual versions are available. This product is an ideal solution for network equipment, test instrument and lab testing applications.