Highly effective acoustooptic diffraction of light by multifrequency sound using a nonaxial deflector

The subject of investigation is multiple-beam Bragg diffraction of light, i.e., the formation of a highly effective multiple-beam field representing a superposition of equidistant monochromatic acoustic waves with determinate phases and amplitudes using a nonaxial TeO₂ deflector. It is shown theoretically and experimentally that the anisotropic character of interaction considerably changes the basic parameters of multiple-beam diffraction (compared with the isotropic case): the net diffraction efficiency grows to 100%, and the frequency band expands noticeably. A modulator splitting the initial laser radiation into five beams of equal intensity with a net efficiency approaching 100% is designed.