Serrated periodic electrode for high energy efficiency and large bandwidth acousto-optic modulators

In an acousto-optic modulator, the electrode shape plays an important role in performance, since it affects the distribution of the acoustic field. The acousto-optic modulator based on the conventional rectangular electrode has the problems of low energy efficiency and small modulation bandwidth due to an imperfect acoustic field. In this paper, a new serrated periodic electrode has been proposed for using acousto-optic modulator transducers. The proposed electrode has the following advantages. By using serrated periodic electrodes to suppress the sidelobes, the collimation of the acoustic field in the direction perpendicular to the light incidence is improved. This makes the acousto-optic modulator have a stable diffraction efficiency fluctuation and high energy efficiency. In addition, the electrode has a large divergence angle in the direction of light incidence, so a large bandwidth can be obtained. The simulations and experiments demonstrate that the serrated periodic electrode has an increased bandwidth and high energy efficiency.