A novel integrated acoustooptic frequency shifter

An integrated optical frequency shifter that utilizes guided-wave acoustooptic Bragg diffractions in cascade from two tilted- and counterpropagating-surface acoustic waves is reported. The doubly and frequency-shifted diffracted light propagates in a fixed direction, but spatially resolved from the incident light, irrespective of the magnitude of frequency tuning. A device fabricated in a Y-cut LiNbO₃ planar waveguide has demonstrated desirable characteristics, including single-sideband suppressed-carrier properties, a frequency shift centered at 1 GHz, a tunable bandwidth of 165 MHz, a linear dynamic range greater than 41 dB, and high efficiency at the optical wavelength of 0.63 μm. These preliminary results suggest that a compact integrated acoustooptic frequency shifter module capable of multigigahertz center frequency and gigahertz bandwidth can be realized in a common LiNBO₃ substrate 0.2 cm×1.0 cm×1.5 cm in size