Guided-wave acoustooptic Bragg cells in GaAs and application at GHz frequencies

High-performance guided-wave acoustooptic Bragg cells operating at a surface acoustic wave (SAW) center frequency of 1.11 GHz have been realized in GaAs. The intensity and polarization of both the undiffracted lights were measured as a function of the RF drive power and the polarization of the incident light, respectively. Diffraction efficiencies as high as 38% for TE_O to TE_O mode diffraction and 32% for TM_O to TM_O mode diffraction were achieved at an acoustic drive power of 2.72 mW and a laser wavelength of 1.15 μm. The gigahertz Bragg cell has also been used to perform RF spectral analysis. A total of 27 channels at a frequency resolution of approximately 3.0 MHz has been obtained at the optical wavelength of 1.30 μm