Abstract

It is argued from a physical point of view that the criteria for acousto-optic Bragg diffraction (characterized by only two orders of light being present) must ultimately include the strength of the sound field. This follows because the scattering effect that is due to the sidelobes of a rectangular transducer, although negligible at low power levels where the Bragg criterion is indeed sound-level independent, becomes of increasing importance at high power levels and causes additional orders to be generated. In this paper we demonstrate this numerically by reduction of the sidelobes through Hamming apodization of the sound field. The results clearly demonstrate a significant reduction in the light powers of the spurious orders, thereby extending Bragg operation to higher sound intensities than normally feasible.

© 1986 Optical Society of America

System characterization of apodized acousto-optic Bragg cells

Ronald J. Pieper and Ting-Chung Poon
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 7(9) 1751-1758 (1990)

Eikonal theory of strong acousto-optic interaction with curved wave fronts of sound

R. Pieper and A. Korpel
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 2(9) 1435-1445 (1985)

Multiple plane-wave analysis of acousto-optic diffraction by adjacent ultrasonic beams of frequency ratio 1:m

Ting-Chung Poon, Monish R. Chatterjee, and Partha P. Banerjee
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(9) 1402-1406 (1986)

Effect of aberrations and apodization on the performance of coherent optical systems. II. Imaging

J. P. Mills and B. J. Thompson
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(5) 704-716 (1986)

Effect of aberrations and apodization on the performance of coherent optical systems. I. The amplitude impulse response

J. P. Mills and B. J. Thompson
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(5) 694-703 (1986)