Agilent 81480A tunable laser repair

The Agilent 81480A is a tunable laser source module designed for the Agilent 8164 and 8166 modular photonics measurement mainframes. It provides high-power tunable output in the C-band and is used for insertion loss sweeps, component characterization, and coherent test applications. These modules are common in fiber optic component manufacturing and R&D labs. Keysight support for the 81480A is discontinued.

TEC (thermoelectric cooler) failure is the most common issue - when the TEC controlling the laser chip temperature fails or loses regulation, output power drops, wavelength accuracy degrades, and the module often generates temperature errors. Laser diode aging shows up as reduced output power and increased RIN. The mainframe interface board can also fail, causing communication errors that make the module appear dead when the laser chip itself is fine. Mechanical shutter failures affect modules used in automated test systems.

We test the module in a compatible 8164-series mainframe, checking output power across the wavelength range, wavelength accuracy, sweep repeatability, and mainframe communication. TEC assessment, laser diode evaluation, interface board check, and NIST-traceable wavelength calibration complete the service.

Flat-rate estimate: $100. Turnaround 1–3 days. Ships worldwide.