Composite acousto-optical modulation

Abstract

We propose a composite acousto-optical modulation (AOM) scheme for wide-band, efficient modulation of CW and pulsed lasers. We show that by adjusting the amplitudes and phases of weakly-driven daughter AOMs, diffraction beyond the Bragg condition can be achieved with exceptional efficiencies. Furthermore, by imaging pairs of AOMs in a counter-propagating configuration, high contrast switching of output orders can be achieved at the driving radio frequency (rf) limit, thereby enabling efficient bidirectional routing of a synchronized mode-locked laser. Here we demonstrate a simplest example of such scheme with a double-AOM setup for efficient diffraction across an octave of rf bandwidth, and for routing a mode-locked pulse train with up to $f_{\mathrm{rep}}=400$~MHz repetition rate. We discuss extension of the composite scheme toward multi-path routing and time-domain multiplexing, so as to individually shape each pulses of ultrafast lasers for novel quantum control applications.

12 pages, 5 figures, minor revision. a few mistakes fixed

References in corpus (5)

• Frequency comb spectroscopy
• Correction of Arbitrary Errors in Population Inversion of Quantum Systems by Universal Composite Pulses
• Coherent Beam Combination of Ultrafast Fiber Lasers
• Precise pulse shaping for quantum control of strong optical transitions
• Nanosecond electro-optical switching with a repetition rate above 20MHz

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Spinor matterwave control with nanosecond spin-dependent kicks