Acoustooptic Bragg diffraction studies on InGaAsP waveguides

Theoretical and experimental studies on guided-wave acoustooptic (AO) Bragg diffraction in composite InP/InGaAsP/InP planar waveguides were carried out for the first time. In this paper the experimental results on the excitation and propagation of <110>-directed surface acoustic waves at the center frequency of 167 MHz and AO Bragg diffraction at 1310 nanometer wavelength in a In/sub 0.22/Ga/sub 0.78/As/sub 0.47/P/sub 0.53/ waveguide are reported. AO Bragg diffraction efficiency as high as 14% has been accomplished at acoustic power of 8.5 milliwatts using an interaction length (transducer aperture) of only 1.0 mm. Improvement in diffraction efficiency by two orders of magnitude should be achievable by optimization of acoustic transducer and optical waveguide parameters.