N7744C and N7745C Optical Multiport Power Meters

General Information

Up to 8 power meter channels in a small package

Keysight Technologies’ new N7744C and N7745C optical power meters with four or eight power-sensor channels provide manufacturing customers with further increased throughput and operational efficiency to meet today’s challenges in multiple-device and multiport testing. A family-wide, common trigger concept, and a modern, browser-accessible user interface, make it convenient to configure the instrument’s functionality.

Designed for optical multiport applications

Successor to Keysight's popular N7744A optical power meters, the N7744C has been further optimized for high measurement throughput when characterizing optical multiport components, for example multiplexers, PON splitters, wavelength selective switches (WSS) and ROADMs, as well as for simultaneous testing of multiple single-port devices. High-speed measurement data acquisition, faster data interfaces, the use of dual-ported RAM for uninterrupted simultaneous measurement and readout, and the new faster power range switching help avoid unnecessary delays in the measurement process as well as in post-processing. Transient measurements are now supported with power threshold triggering.

Save significant rack space

These power meters achieve a level of space-saving channel density that simplifies fiber handling for many-port device testing. This is complemented by the ease of integrating multiple instruments into a single setup with parallel programming over the LAN or USB connections. A single N7744C/ N7745C is only one rack unit high and a half rack unit wide.

Key Benefits

High-speed measurement data acquisition for sweptwavelength and transient measurements

• Short minimum averaging time of 1 µs and up to 250 kHz bandwidth

• Data acquisition with up to 1 Million samples per second and per port

• Memory for 1 M samples/port plus 1 M/port buffer for continuous logging with up to 3x faster data transfer

• Frequency response matched to averaging time and stable dark-current zeroing provide high dynamic range without distorting filter shapes at high sweep speed

Unprecedented device connectivity (patented)

• Industry-leading solution to separate the connecting task from the measuring task

• Fibers can be comfortably attached to the quad-adapter away from the power meter

• The quad-adapter supports MU, FC, SC and LC connectors, as well as bare fiber connectors

Flexibility

• The instrument can be controlled via LAN and USB

• The comprehensive hardware and trigger concept along with its large memory storage gives the flexibility to adapt the power meter to many test needs

• The instrument programming code is compatible to the Lightwave solution platform

Faster swept-wavelength measurements with high dynamic range

The new N7744C and N7745C, combined with Keysight tunable lasers and a Keysight polarization synthesizer and controlled by the photonic application software suite, perform spectral measurements of insertion loss, polarization dependent loss and polarization mode dispersion. Accelerated concurrent power ranging and bi-directional wavelength sweeping enable high-throughput testing and fast update rates in alignment and adjustment processes. The photonic application software suite has a measurement engine for IL and PDL that can combine the sweeps of up to 3 tunable laser wavelength ranges. See the photonic application software suite brochure for details. www.keysight.com/find/n7700

A reliable four-port optical connection with the trusted one-click quad-adapter

With this new power meter comes the trusted N7740 fiber connectivity concept, which is a quadruple adapter with a snap-on quick-locking mechanism. The device to be tested can be connected to the quadadapters in a comfortable ergonomic working position, even while the instrument is measuring another device.

The quad-adapters can be quickly snapped on to the instrument, to provide reliable and repeatable highprecision connections. Use of the quad-adapters simplifies aligning connector keys, especially for rackmounted instruments and makes it easier to connect ports in the desired order, helping to avoid errors and connector damage.

A bare fiber version of the quad-adapter, N7740BI, can host up to four bare fiber holders. Two types of bare fiber holder kits with four holders each are available for fiber diameters up to 400 µm (81004BM) and between 400 µm and 900 µm (81009BM). The one-click zeroing adapter N7740ZI allows quick and reliable 4-port zeroing of the power meters.

Definitions

Generally, all specifications are valid at the stated operating and measurement conditions and settings, with uninterrupted line voltage.

Specifications (guaranteed)

Describes warranted product performance that is valid under the specified conditions. Specifications include guard bands to account for the expected statistical performance distribution, measurement uncertainties changes in performance due to environmental changes and aging of components.

Typical values (characteristics)

Characteristics describe the product performance that is usually met but not guaranteed. Typical values are based on data from a representative set of instruments.

General characteristics

Give additional information for using the instrument. These are general descriptive terms that do not imply a level of performance.