Microcontroller interrupts for flexible control of time critical tasks in experiments with laser cooled atoms

Abstract

I detail applications of timer interrupts in a popular micro-controller family to time critical applications in laser-cooling type experiments. I demonstrate a low overhead 1-bit frequency locking scheme and a multichannel experimental sequencer using the timer-counter intterrupts to achieve accurate timing along with flexible interfaces. The general purpose nature of micro-controllers can offer unique functionality compared with commercial solutions due to the flexibility of a computer controlled interface without the poor latencies associated with computer timing.