Abstract

Mercurous chloride (Hg₂Cl₂) is an efficient acoustooptic material which is transparent from the blue to far-infrared portions of the spectrum. We have grown sizable single crystals and fabricated acoustooptic tunable filters from them with sufficient physical and angular aperture to be useful in an imaging system as a tunable optical band-pass filter. We have demonstrated imaging at 0.6328 µm through a 2-cm aperture with an electrical drive power substantially <1 W at 28 MHz. Design parameters indicate a 1° angular aperture from 0.5 to 2 µm with an operating power of the order of 40-mW/cm² drive power for 100% diffraction efficiency. Experimental data about filter performance agrees with the design predictions.

© 1986 Optical Society of America