Blackchirp Documentation
Important
Blackchirp 2.0 is in pre-release. Documentation for the current v1.1.0 release is at https://blackchirp.readthedocs.io/1.1.x/. For information about accessing the 2.0 pre-release, join the Discord server.
Blackchirp is a cross-platform (Windows, macOS, Linux) data acquisition program for chirped-pulse Fourier transform microwave (CP-FTMW) spectrometers. It accommodates a wide range of hardware combinations — digitizers, arbitrary waveform generators, delay generators, mass flow controllers, analog/digital IO boards, pressure controllers, and temperature sensors — and supports several acquisition modes including segmented acquisitions and double-resonance experiments. Acquired data can be inspected in real time during a run, and is stored on disk in a plain-text semicolon-delimited CSV format that is easy to parse from Python or any other analysis environment.
Where to start
The user guide walks through installing Blackchirp, connecting and configuring hardware, running experiments, and inspecting data, in roughly the order a new user encounters when setting up a spectrometer for the first time:
Getting Started — install Blackchirp, complete the first-run wizard, and learn the main UI.
Hardware Setup — configure profiles, loadouts, and per-device drivers.
Running Experiments — set up FTMW, LIF, and combined acquisitions.
Inspecting Data — view FTMW and LIF results during and after acquisition, with overlays and plot customization.
Data Format and Diagnostics — on-disk file formats and crash-report locations.
Blackchirp Viewer — the standalone viewer application.
Other resources:
Migration Guide — upgrade notes for users coming from Blackchirp 1.x.
Changelog — version history.
Developer Guide — architecture, build system, and contribution conventions.
API Reference — C++ API reference generated from the source.
Python Module — companion Python module for offline analysis.
If your hardware is not yet supported, please open an issue on GitHub or join the Discord server to discuss it with other users and the maintainers.