Acoustooptic cells with nonuniform length of light-sound interaction

Diffraction of light by acoustic waves that are generated in the acoustooptic cells of piezoelectric transducers with complex geometry is studied. The diffraction by acoustic beams with triangular, quadrangular (rhombic), hexagonal, etc., cross sections, when the lengths of light-sound interaction in the cross-sectional area of the light beam are different, is considered in the plane wave approximation. The difference in the length of interaction affects the instrument function of acoustooptic devices and provides the suppression of the side lobes in their transmission function. The advantages of using cells with complex-geometry transducers in tunable acoustooptic filters that are incorporated into fiber-optic communication lines with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) are discussed.