INTEGRATED ACOUSTOOPTIC CIRCUITS AND APPLICATIONS

The recent development of titanium-indiffusion proton-exchange (TIPE) microlenses and lens arrays has made possible the construction of a variety of single- and multichannel integrated acoustooptic (AO) and acoustooptic-electrooptic (EO) circuits in LiNbO3 channel-planar waveguides 0.1 x 1.0 x 2.0 cm3 in size. These hybrid AO and AO-EO circuits can be fabricated through compatible and well-established technologies. The most recent realization of ion-milled microlenses and lens arrays together with the recent development of GHz AO Bragg modulators and EO Bragg modulator arrays have also paved the way for construction of similar, but monolithic AO and AO-EO GaAs/GaAlAs waveguides of comparable size. Both types of integrated AO and AO-EO circuits suggest versatile applications in communications, signal processing, and computing. Efficient and simultaneous excitation of the channel waveguide array using an ion-milled planar microlens array has facilitated the demonstration of some of these applications.