Pulse generation with an acousto-optic frequency shifter in a passive cavity

Abstract

A train of pulses is generated by coupling the cw output of a single frequency He-Ne laser into a passive ring ‘‘cavity’’ which contains an acousto-optic frequency shifter. Each cavity pass shifts the frequency of the wave by 80 MHz. This results in an intensity pattern which is an Airy function in time. For a single frequency input, the output pulse width is 2 ns with a repetition rate of 80 MHz. Data are also presented on the output of this device for multimode cw input.