A Distributed GUI-based Computer Control System for Atomic Physics Experiments
Atomic physics experiments often require a complex sequence of precisely timed computer controlled events. This paper describes a distributed graphical user interface-based control system designed with such experiments in mind, which makes use of off-the-shelf output hardware from National Instrumen...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88508 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9528-3044 |
| Summary: | Atomic physics experiments often require a complex sequence of precisely timed computer controlled events. This paper describes a distributed graphical user interface-based control system designed with such experiments in mind, which makes use of off-the-shelf output hardware from National Instruments. The software makes use of a client-server separation between a user interface for sequence design and a set of output hardware servers. Output hardware servers are designed to use standard National Instruments output cards, but the client-server nature should allow this to be extended to other output hardware. Output sequences running on multiple servers and output cards can be synchronized using a shared clock. By using a field programmable gate array-generated variable frequency clock, redundant buffers can be dramatically shortened, and a time resolution of 100 ns achieved over effectively arbitrary sequence lengths. |
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