Abstract

Tellurium dioxide (TeO₂) is a very popular crystal as an interaction medium for acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs) in both visible and IR.¹ This is due to its high birefringence and figure-of-merit for slow shear wave propagating closely to <110) direction, However, there are intrinsic drawbacks associated with the TeO₂ crystal, which prevent a conventionally designed noncollinear AOTF² from achieving subnanometer spectral resolution with a reasonable optical aperture, which are necessary for many spectroscopic applications, such as Raman. The achievable resolving power typically is limited to several hundreds.³

© 1996 Optical Society of America