Acousto-Optics: introduction to the feature issue

Ting-Chung Poon,1,* Chen S. Tsai,2 Vitaly B. Voloshinov,3 and Monish Chatterjee4

1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA2Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, Mail Code ZOT 2625,

Irvine, California 92697, USA3Faculty of Physics, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119992 Moscow, Russia

4Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, Ohio 45469-0232, USA

*Corresponding author: tcpoon@vt.edu

Received 13 February 2009; accepted 13 February 2009;posted 13 February 2009 (Doc. ID 107576); published 27 February 2009

This Acousto-Optics feature celebrates the scientific careers of two remarkable scientists, Antoni Sliwins-ki and Adrian Korpel. The feature includes original papers based on a representative selection of topicsthat were presented at the Tenth Spring School on Acousto-Optics held in Poland in May 2008. © 2009Optical Society of America

OCIS codes: 230.1040, 070.1060.

The years 2007 and 2008 marked milestones in thelives of two leading researchers and educators in thefield of acousto-optics; Professors Adrian Korpel andAntoni Sliwinski turned 75 and 80, respectively. Tocommemorate these platinum and postplatinummilestones, the far-flung colleagues, collaborators,and students of these two accomplished scientistsdecided to put together a special issue of AppliedOptics in their honor, dedicated to acousto-optics.With kind encouragement from that journal, it wasdecided that research papers submitted for the fea-ture issue would contain a representative selectionof original papers that were presented at the TenthSpring School on Acousto-Optics in Sopot, Poland, inMay 2008, as well as other appropriate papers thatcover a range of topics.Dr. Sliwinski, who has published articles on

acousto-optics research for more than 40 years,was instrumental in developing the Spring Schoolon Acousto-Optics and Applications in 1980, whichbrought together researchers on acousto-optics fromacross Europe, the United States, and elsewhere forclose to 30 years. Dr. Korpel has made significant

contributions to the understanding of acousto-opticsby means of his development of the multiple plane-wave scattering formalism, the Feynman diagramapproach, and other analytical models for weakand strong interactions for planar and curved wave-fronts. Along the way, they have both extensivelypublished papers, monographs, and books, severalof which are regarded as classics in the field. As uni-versity educators, they have also guided and inspiredmany students and researchers to pursue careersaround acousto-optics and other areas of optics-related research.

This feature issue contains a total of 23 papers,including one by Dr. Korpel and another by Dr.Sliwinsky co-authored with Piotr Kwiek. All thepapers underwent substantial peer review underthe guidelines of Applied Optics. In his short article,Dr. Korpel gives a riveting account of his personaldiscovery of acousto-optics and how the spirit ofdelight (childhood “curiosity and playfulness,” ashe describes it) guided his work in this and otherfields, something he continues, postretirement, in ac-tivities as diverse as writing poems, essays, and shortstories. In their article, Drs. Kwiek and Sliwinski layout in revealing detail the international research col-laboration that has resulted from the Spring Schoolson Acousto-Optics held in Poland since 1980. The

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essay profiles the scientific interactions, aided by his-toric photographs and figures.The twenty-one research papers can be broadly di-

vided into two groups: sixteen that directly describeacousto-optic interactions and associated applica-tions, when present, and five that primarily describemeasurements or characterizations based on theuse of light and sound. Four of the papers basedon acousto-optic interactions deal with acousto-optictunable filters (AOTFs). Kastelik et al. describe atunable filter based on successive anisotropic inter-actions in paratellurite. Dobrolenskiy et al. investi-gate the effect of nonreciprocal behavior on theparameters of tunable filters and other devices ator above 1GHz. Tseng and Tarn propose a polariza-tion mode dispersion monitoring scheme for erbium-doped fiber amplifiers using an AOTF. Gupta pre-sents experimental results for AOTFs made frommercurous halide crystals suitable for operationin the UV to the longwave infrared (LWIR) rangewith reasonable performance characteristics. Sevenpapers deal with the investigation of fundamentalacousto-optic interactions. Voloshinov and Polikar-pova investigate unusual propagation and reflec-tion of acoustic waves in anisotropic materials suchas paratellurite using acousto-optic interactions.Grulkowski et al. consider the interaction of airbornecylindrical ultrasound with laser light inside He–Neand argon-ion laser cavities. Bukowski analyzes theRaman–Nath interaction of a Gaussian optical beamwith the nonstationary temperature field of a one-dimensional thermal wave. Zyuryukin and Yulaevapply a vector diagram concept to the collinear,anisotropic interaction of harmonically modulatedlight with a standing acoustic wave. Balakshy andMantsevich examine the diffraction characteristicsof divergent optical beams interacting collinearlyin calcium molybdate and paratellurite. Pieperet al. derive exact analytical solutions for four-orderBragg diffraction under arbitrary initial conditions.Ng et al. use numerical analysis based on opticaldiffraction to characterize liquid surface acousticwaves effectively. Five papers emphasize applica-

tions of acousto-optics. Balakshy and Kostyuk de-scribe acousto-optic image processing in somedetail and present a new method for visualizingphase objects. Solodov et al. develop a theory forthe interaction between a narrow laser beam andacoustic waves in air using concepts of reflectionvibrometry. Petkovsek et al. use photoelastically in-duced birefringence in lithium niobate via mechani-cal oscillations that are due to an applied voltage toexamine the propagation of polarized light. Molcha-nov et al. analyze dispersive AOTFs based on quasi-collinear interactions in paratellurite and conductexperiments for femtosecond laser pulse shaping.Antonov et al. investigate multifunctional switching(spatial multiplexing) of light beams across fiber-optic channels using light diffraction by multifre-quency sound waves and demonstrate improvementsin number of channels, switching time, and crosstalk. The remaining five papers include one byGuo et al. that demonstrates a laser photothermalinstrumentation technique useful in measuringsteel hardness online. Egerev et al. discuss a physicalmodel suitable for describing optical to acousticalconversion during irradiation of metal nanoparticleswith laser pulses by means of optical–plasmon inter-actions. Bodzenta et al. examine thermal diffusivityof three doped single crystals used in the solid-state laser application of a thermal wave method.Skrodzka et al. examine modal frequencies of violinsusing both mechanical and optical investigationmethods. Finally, Kazmierczak-Balata et al. deter-mine the thermal conductivities of thin filmson semiconductor substrates using photothermalexperiments.

This feature issue benefited from the outstandingcoordination efforts by Keith Jackson and JosephRichardson, who ensured that the feature editorswere continually engaged in the review process toensure timely completion of the reviews. Thanksare also due to Lucille Halberstadt for the cover pagedesign and to all the contributors whose participa-tion made this issue possible.

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