Pulse amplitude modulation of a CO2 laser in an electro-optic thin-film waveguide

Beam steering of a 10. 6-μm guided-wave mode in an electro-optic GaAs thin-film waveguide is observed. The deflection angle increases linearly with increasing voltage and interaction length. A switching time of about 60 nsec has been obtained and is limited by the detector response. This technique has been used to obtain more than 12% amplitude modulation of a CO2 laser by applying only 50 V to an ∼20-μm-thick GaAs thin-film waveguide having a total interaction length of 0. 5 cm.