Abstract

Acoustooptic interaction in isotropic and uniaxial crystals has been investigated extensively. Specially uniaxial crystals have been used to increase the bandwidth and angular aperture of the acoustooptic device. However, the acoustooptic interaction in biaxial crystals has not been investigated extensively. Many characteristics of the acoustooptic device, such as bandwidth and angular aperture, depend on the phase mismatch of the acoustooptic interaction. The phase mismatch in turn depends on the wave normal structure of the crystal. The wave normal surfaces of biaxial crystals are more complicated than those of uniaxial crystals. Therefore, we can exploit the complexity of biaxial crystals to improve the characteristics of acoustooptic devices. As an example, we can devise an acoustooptic spatial light modulator with both maximized bandwidth and angular aperture which cannot be achieved with a uniaxial crystal.

© 1987 Optical Society of America