Hexagonal Serrated Electrode for High Energy Efficiency and Large Bandwidth Acousto-Optic Deflector

In acousto-optic interaction, the acoustic field plays a key role in the performance of the acousto-optic deflector. The region of electrode within the acousto-optic deflector determines the distribution of the three dimensional acoustic field. The traditional acousto-optic deflector based on rectangular electrodes suffer from high energy consumption and limited bandwidth issues. In this letter, a hexagonal serrated electrode design is proposed for high energy efficiency and large bandwidth acousto-optic deflector. Hexagonal serrated electrode effectively suppresses acoustic side lobe due to its hexagonal profile, resulting in improved collimation and uniformity of the acoustic field. Therefore, it can effectively improve the energy efficiency and diffracted spot uniformity of the acousto-optic deflector. In addition, a wide bandwidth can be obtained due to the serrated edge design of the electrode, which gives them a large divergence angle. Simulation and experiment show that the energy efficiency of hexagonal serrated electrode is increased by 19.5% and the bandwidth is increased by 18% compared with the traditional rectangular electrode.