Chopper
Periodically interrupts light with an adjustable frequency and duty cycle, showing gated pulse trains and a schematic chopped pattern for continuous beams.
Open in the canvas →In the real world
An optical chopper uses a rotating slotted wheel to interrupt a beam. Chopping frequency describes how often the beam is interrupted, while duty cycle describes the fraction of each cycle that remains open. Commercial systems offer different wheel patterns and frequency ranges[1].
In OpticalSetup
Enable Modulate on/off, set Chop frequency in hertz, and adjust the on fraction and gate offset. Pulsed illumination is gated in time. CW light is drawn in visible chunks, while its detector reading uses duty-averaged power.
The example sends CW light through a 50% gate to a detector. Lower the on fraction to shorten the drawn illuminated sections and reduce the average reading. Disable modulation to restore uninterrupted transmission.
The chunk spacing is schematic, not the physical distance traveled between openings. Blade-edge transit, motor jitter, and diffraction are omitted; the drawn wheel is not a specification for a particular commercial chopper.