Ultralow sidelobe-level integrated acoustooptic tunable filtersusing tapered-gap surface acoustic wave directional couplers

We propose a new weighted-coupling scheme using tapered-gap surface acoustic wave directional couplers for realization of ultralow sidelobe-level integrated acoustooptic tunable filters (IAOTF's). Appropriate design analysis has been carried out for 30-mm-long filters operating at an optical wavelength of 1.55 μm in an X-cut Y-propagating LiNbO₃ substrate. New synthesized weighting functions have been used for the improvement of sidelobe level suppression over existing single-stage filters by as much as 27 dB. The -20 dB mainlobe width of the resulting IAOTF's varies from 2.7 to 3.9 nm only for the worst sidelobe levels ranging from -30.6 to -44.7 dB, respectively. It has also been shown that further suppression of sidelobe levels by 3-9 dB is possible if the filter is underdriven at 80% mode-conversion efficiency     

Low-sidelobe weighted-coupled integrated acoustooptic tunablefilter using focused surface acoustic waves

A single-stage low-sidelobe weighted-coupled integrated acoustooptic tunable filter (IAOTF) operating at the optical wavelength of 1.31 μm has been realized on a Y-cut X-propagating LiNbO₃ substrate for the first time. The weighted-coupling, which enabled the achievement of low-sidelobe levels, was facilitated by focused surface acoustic waves generated by a curved interdigital transducer. First sidelobe levels as low as -17.6 dB have been obtained. Optical bandwidth of 4 nm and tuning range of 170 nm for an interaction length of 6 mm were also accomplished     

8×8 symmetric nonblocking integrated acoustooptic spaceswitch module on LiNbO3

An 8×8 symmetric nonblocking integrated acoustooptic space switch module has been realized on a Y-cut LiNbO₃ substrate, 1.0×10.0×37.0 mm in size. The switch module consists of a new hybrid beam expanding-collimating lens, a large aperture focusing lens, and a pair of four-element tilted surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducer arrays in a titanium-in-diffused channel-planar-channel composite waveguide. Experimental results of point-to-point nonblocking switching at the optical wavelength of 0.6328 μm, including an average crosstalk of -12.2 dB, optical switching efficiency of 25% at 125 mW RF drive power, carrier frequency increment of 13.5 MHz for switching between adjacent output channels and reconfiguration time of 0.4 μs have been obtained     

Integrated acoustooptic tunable filters using weighted coupling

A detailed theory and experimental results are presented on weighted-coupling integrated acoustooptic tunable filters (IAOTF). A low-sidelobe-level single-stage IAOTF in which the weighted coupling was facilitated by focused surface acoustic waves along an interaction length of 6.0 mm has been realized on a Y-X LiNbO₃ substrate, 8 mm in length. The measured performances of this weighted-coupling IAOTF at the optical center wavelength of 1.31 μm include a peak mode conversion at the acoustic center frequency of 214.6 MHz, a wavelength tuning range of 110 nm, a -3 dB optical bandwidth of 4.1 nm, and a switching rise time of 0.965 μs. Sidelobe levels below -21.4 dB have been accomplished at the mode-conversion efficiency of 15 percent and an RF drive power of 160 mW