Spatial light modulators

Electrode Com.rgation Waveguide

347

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Input prisrn coupler Y-cut LiNbO. waveguide Bragg diftiacted

Fig. 13.16
A Bragg type filter employing grooves as the reflecting elements.

light beanr

Qe

Output prism coupler

Fig. 13.17
Llndiffracted

A beam deflector in Integrated Optics

light beam

lorm.

What can we use such a coupler for? Well, it is obr.'iouslv a s\\,itch. In the absence of a voltage, all the porver can be transferred from rvaveguide I to 2. Destroying then the synchronism by appiying a voltage, we can "vaveguide srvitch the power to waveguide I or vice versa.

13.7.4

Filters

One fype of filter which reflects the signal in a certain u'avelength band and transmits the rest may be realized by relying once more on Bragg reflection. Cumulative reflection may be obtained by placing refiecting elements at the right period into the waveguide. This is shou,n in Fig. 13.16. where the reflecting elements are grooves at a distance of ),g/2 tiom each other, with l* being the wavelength in the waveguide. Obviously, a large number of other devices exist which I cannot possibly include in this course, but let me just briefly mention one more, namely the integrated optics realization of the acousto-optic beam deflector. In this case, the steerable acoustic column is provided by interdigital surface acoustic wave transducers (see Section 10.13) and the optical beam is confined to the viciniry of the surface by a so-called planar waveguide. The optical beam will then sense the periodic perturbation caused by the surface acoustic u'ave and will be duly diffracted, as shown in Fig. 13. I 7.

13.8

Spatial light modulators

light modulators which modulate the intensity

We have several times mentioned

of the incident light beam. Note that in those devices there is only one light