Automated assembly and alignment of NIR and MIR external cavity diode laser systems

State-of-the-Art manufacturing processes are carried out using manual operators, which results into significant variations in the manufacturing process. This has negative effects on reproducibility and quality. A solution suitable for industrial use is a fully automated production concept using assembly robots. This high-precision assembly technology approach applied on the alignment of collimation lenses and on external cavity components provides sufficient precision as required for the best performance of the laser system. The presented solution provides positioning accuracy better than 100 nm in all three translation degrees of freedom and angle accuracy better than 1/100°. In-situ monitoring of the optical and spectral performance of each of the assembly and alignment process steps allows to make use of the alignment accuracy and results into the best possible reproducibility and performance. Application of this technology like alignment of external cavity lasers with Volume-Bragg-Grating or MEMS-Actuator as cavity mirror element are presented.