Acoustic Optical Deflector

Acoustic-Optical Deflectors (AODs) are used in a variety of scientific practices. AOD technology has made practical the Bose-Einstein condensation for which the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Eric A. Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle and Carl E. Wieman. Another application of acoustic-optical deflection is optical trapping of small molecules.AODs are essentially the same as acousto-optic modulators (AOMs). In an AOM, only the amplitude of the sound wave is modulated (to modulate the intensity of the diffracted laser beam), whereas in an AOD, both the amplitude and frequency are adjusted, making the engineering requirements tighter for an AOD than an AOM.
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