Acousto-optic laser-deflector
Electro-Optical Products

The acousto-optic deflector is used to scan a laser beam over a range of angles, or to control the output angle of a laser beam with great accuracy. A Bragg configuration produces a single first order output beam, whose intensity is directly linked to the power of the RF control signal, and whose angle is directly linked to the RF frequency. By varying the frequency of the RF control signal, the angle of the output laser beam is adjusted.

An acousto-optic deflector is defined by the following parameters:
1) The range of the deflection angle, which is the maximum angle variation of the laser beam, is linked to the frequency range of the device;
2) The resolution of a deflector is the number of specific directions which can be addressed by the deflector. It is linked to the range of the deflection angle and the laser divergence; and
3) The random access time.