High S/N-ratio electrooptic prism-array light deflectors

A method to construct electrooptic prism-array deflectors which is, in the author's view, the most promising device for application in digital systems is analyzed. Experiments agreed well with the analysis. An experimental deflector with nine elements showed 180 resolved individual spots when driven with a maximum voltage of ± 580 V. It is shown that this type of deflector is capable of resolving over one thousand Rayleigh points. For example, with fifty-four LiTaO3crystals with the dimension of0.2 × 0.8 × 21mm, one can have 1080 Rayleigh points for ± 64 V applied. The extinction ratio of this deflector is over 32 dB.