RevMexAA (Serie de Conferencias), 37, 156–159 (2009)

A DESIGN OF AN ACOUSTO-OPTICAL SPECTROMETER

G. Herrera-Martı́nez,1 A. Luna,1 L. Carrasco,1 A. Shcherbakov,1 D. Sánchez,1 E. Mendoza,1 and F. Renero1

RESUMEN
La radioespectroscopı́a se ha convertido en una herramienta fundamental para estudiar objetos astronómicos
© 2010: Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM - A Long Walk Through Astronomy: A Celebration of Luis Carrasco’s 60th Birthday

en la banda de las microondas. Por lo tanto, es necesario el diseño y construcción de instrumentos con alta
resolución espectral, bajo consumo de potencia y dimensiones lo más compactas posibles que hagan fácil su
manejo y transporte. Aquı́ presentamos el diseño y pruebas de un espectrómetro acusto-óptico para uso en
radioastronomı́a solar y para el estudio de la variabilidad de máseres cósmicos con una antena de 5 metros de
diámetro (RT5) que se esta reinstalando en Sierra Negra. Mostramos las primeras evaluaciones del desempeño
de los componentes y el ensamble de laboratorio.

ABSTRACT
The radio spectroscopy has became a fundamental tool to study astronomical objets at the microwave band.
Therefore, the design and construction of instruments with high spectral resolution, low power consumption
and compact size for easy handle and transport are necessary. Here we present the design and the tests of
an acousto-optical spectrometer for use in solar radio astronomy and for variability studies of cosmic masers
sources with a 5 meter antenna (RT5) which is being reinstalled at the Sierra Negra site. We present the first
Ed. E. Recillas, A. Luna, & Y. D. Mayya

evaluations of the performance of the components and the laboratory assembly.

Key Words: Spectrometers — Acousto optics — Instrumentation

1. INTRODUCTION
The reinstallation of a 5 m dish radio telescope
give us the oportunity to explore alternatives for
spectrometer techniques. Three spectrometers types
are common in radio astronomy: filter-bank, auto-
correlator and acousto-optic. The filter-bank-type
sprectrometers have several limitations: the main-
tenance and calibration required for every channel,
and the fixed channel width. The autocorrellation-
type is limited mainly by the power consumption
and bandwidth because of current computer speed.
The acousto-optical spectrometer (AOS) has been
extensively used in radio astronomy, since Lambert
described its principle (Lambert 1962). They are an
efficient option for satellite telescopes (Klumb et al. Fig. 1. Spectrometer bandwidth and spectral resolution
1994), due to the low power consumption and com- at 43 GHz. The plot, adapted from (Harris 2002), shows
pact size which make easy to handle and transport. the required velocities and frequencies for typical sources.
Our main interest is the study of different astro- The dashed line indicates the region of spectral resolution
and bandwidth for this spectrometer according to the
nomical objects at the millimeter band (∼ 43 GHz).
evaluation shown in § 3.
Figure 1 shows, for some of such objets, the required
resolution and bandwidth. The plot shows that AOS
is very well positioned for stellar formation and in- electric transducer that mechanically modulate a
terstellar medium studies at these frequencies. Bragg cell illuminated by a collimated light beam.
The principle of performance is as follows: the This Bragg cell, also known as Acousto-Optical De-
intermediate frequency (IF) of an heterodyne re- flector (AOD), is an acusto-optical crystal of TeO2
ceiver of a radio telescope is injected into a piezo- which deflects a laser light beam as a function of
1 Instituto Nacional de Astrofı́sica Óptica y Electrónica, the injected IF. The TeO2 crystal is known for its
Mexico ([email protected]). acousto-optical properties (Uchida & Kiizeki 1973).

156
 AN ACOUSTO-OPTICAL SPECTROMETER 157
© 2010: Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM - A Long Walk Through Astronomy: A Celebration of Luis Carrasco’s 60th Birthday

Fig. 2. Light intensity distribution in the Bragg regime,

where the interaction lenght is large, this regime provides Fig. 3. Comparison of the simulated spot size (subframe)
an oportunity of realizing 100% of light scattering. with OSLO EDU 6.4.5 and a measurement of a large
format lenses system of Edmund optics with F W HM '
24 µm.
The propagation of the acoustic wave through the
photo-elastic medium produces traveling periodic TABLE 1
variations in the refractive index of this medium.
Ed. E. Recillas, A. Luna, & Y. D. Mayya

SPOT SIZE EVALUATION

The diffraction pattern depends essentially on the
length L of the interaction zone between the light Stock Lens Focal Spot Airy
beam and the acoustic waves. So the regimes of number diam. distance diam. diam.
diffraction have two limiting cases, corresponding to (mm) (mm) (µm) (µm)
a short and a large lengths of interaction. The Bragg
Edmund 40 200 6.5 16
diffraction regime, that we use, occurs with a large
u32-925
L. In this case the dynamic acoustic grating is rather
Melles Griot 50 250 6.5 18
thick. So, during the analysis of the diffraction pro-
cess, one has to take into account the phase relations lao-631
between waves of different orders. Such regime can Thorlabs 50.8 250 6.4 14
be realized only when the angle of incident light θB AC508-250-A1
on a thick acoustic grating meets the Bragg condi- Newport 50.8 250 6.4 14
tion PAC088
λ
sin θB = ;
2nΛ 2. FOCUSING SYSTEM AND SPOT SIZE
and EVALUATION
λL We have theoretically investigated the potential
Q=  1.
Λ2 size of an individual resolvable spot inherent in vari-
ous lens sets in a view of optical matching the AOD
Here, Q is the Klein-Cook paramter (Klein & aperture (about 40 mm) with a pair of the CCD-
Cook 1967), λ is the laser wavelength, n is the re- camera pixels (about 14 µm). For this purpose, we
fraction index of the crystal and Λ is the acoustic have used the OSLO EDU 6.4.5 ray tracing software
wavelength. The light intensity in orders of scatter- and analyzed the spot size of more than 20 various
ing is shown in Figure 2, where types of lens sets. The result are given in Table 1,
p were it may be seen that we have obtained two poten-
q = π(λ cos θ)−1 2M2 P S −1 ; tially acceptable lens sets from Thorlabs and New-
port with a same spot size of about 14 µm and a
M2 is the acousto-optic figure of merit, and P/S is focal distance of 250 mm. They both are potentially
the acoustic power density. It is desirable to perform suitable for the goals of the AOS under construction.
the Bragg regime since it reaches 100% efficiency of Figure 3 shows the spot size measured in the focal
light scattering. plane of the focus lens system. This size defines the
 158 HERRERA-MARTÍNEZ ET AL.

TABLE 2
EVALUATION OF THE DIFFRACTION
ANGLES
Frequency Distance on Expected Measured
(MHz) screen (mm) value (◦ ) value (◦ )
55 79 3.07 3.08 ± 0.03
60 86 3.34 3.35 ± 0.03
© 2010: Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM - A Long Walk Through Astronomy: A Celebration of Luis Carrasco’s 60th Birthday

65 93 3.62 3.62 ± 0.03

70 101 3.90 3.93 ± 0.03
75 107 4.18 4.16 ± 0.03
80 114 4.45 4.43 ± 0.03
85 122 4.73 4.74 ± 0.03
90 128 5.01 4.98 ± 0.03
Fig. 4. Injected signal of the AOD driver signal sweeped
from 55 to 90 MHz, with a 5 MHz step.

spectrometer band resolution. For a Edmund Optics

focusing lens system a spot size of 4 pixels at FWHM
was reached (∼ 28 microns).
Ed. E. Recillas, A. Luna, & Y. D. Mayya

3. AOD EVALUATION AND PERFORMANCE

The AOD, manufactured by Molecular Technol-
ogy GmbH, consists of a driver, which manages the
injected signal to the transducer, and the optical
block, where the piezoelectric transducer, the crystal
and the absorber for the acoustic wave, are placed.
First, we perform computations for the spectral
resolution (δf ) and the bandwidth (∆F ) intrinsic to
our AOD. With a large optical window and a low
sound velocity into crystal we can improve the re-
soution. The data sheet of AOD specifics the sound Fig. 5. Qualitative spectrum of the AOS without fo-
velocity in the crystal, 650 km s−1 , and the optical cusing optics and a CCD integration time of 1µs. For
window, 40 × 10 mm. A linear CCD array with 3000 frequency calibration the better fit was linear, with this,
pixels (#CCD) and a pixel size of 14 × 200 µm was the bandwidth by a pair of pixels are ∼ 32 KHz.
used. We obtain

Vsound 650ms−1 where f is the frequency of the acoustic wave, λ is

δf = = = 16.24 KHz , the laser wavelength and Vsound is the sound velocity
Lcrystal 40mm
in the crystal.
and the bandwidth A He-Ne laser module of 633nm@12mW with lin-
ear polarization was used to illuminate orthogonally
δf #CCD the AOD window. The projection of the diffracted
∆F = = 24.3 MHz .
2 beam was measured in a screen at 1470 mm away
from the output of the cell. A signal frequency
In terms of the velocity at the 43 GHz fre-
sweeped in frequency from 55 MHz to 90 MHz with
quency (λ0 = 7mm) the results are 0.1 km s−1 and
a 5 MHz step was used. The results are shown in
168 km s−1 respectively (dashed line of Figure 1).
Figure 4.
In the practice, we first evaluate the dispersion
Measurements of the diffraction angle are listed
angle(φ) of the AOD at different frequencies using
in Table 2. The percentage error is less than 10%
the aproximation:
of the expected value. The scanning angle in the air
fλ for all the bandwidth is 2.2◦ ± 0.03, in good agree-
tan φ = ; ment with the data sheet (2.25◦ ). The AOD was
Vsound
 AN ACOUSTO-OPTICAL SPECTROMETER 159

In Figure 5, the measurement of the intensities

at different angles of diffracted beam on the CCD
camera without focusing optics are shown. For the
frequency calibration a gaussian fit for every beam
was made so we locate the pixel postion where the
maximums are. Using least squares we calculate the
better fit, there is a lineal relationship between the
separation of the maximums and the deflection angle
© 2010: Instituto de Astronomía, UNAM - A Long Walk Through Astronomy: A Celebration of Luis Carrasco’s 60th Birthday

of the beam. With this, the spectral resolution in a

pair of pixels is ∼ 64 KHz. Furthermore we can see
a surrounding shape like a function of the deflected
angle. If we change the frequency of the acoustic
Fig. 6. Actual assembly of AOS, all the components are
mounted in a optical bench of 1 × 2 ft, the expansion of
wave, we will see how it varies the intensity of the
laser beam is doing by a galilean telescope with magnifi- deflected beam too.
cation of 15x. The laboratory assembly is shown in Figure 6.
Two mirrors are needed to bend the optical path
constructed so that the incident light beam should due to the dimentions of the optical bench. Some
be orthogonal to the input optical plane of the cell, additional mechanical parts have been made to get
and the light polarization plane should be parallel to the best alignment of the optical path.
the base of optical block. This construction provides
the maximum scanning angle value. REFERENCES
Ed. E. Recillas, A. Luna, & Y. D. Mayya

We can see that the range of diffraction angle is Harris, A. I. 2002, in Proc. Far-IR, Sub-mm and Millime-
appropiate for our purposes. To get a better fre- ter Detector Technology Workshop, ed. J. Wolf, J.
quency resolution we need a focusing lens with a Farhoomand, & C. R. McCreight, NASA CP-211408
good spot size at the focal plane. Klein, R. W., & Cook, B. D. 1967, IEEE Trans. Sonics
and Ultrasonics, 14, 123
4. WORK IN PROGRESS Klumb, M., Frerick, J., Tolls, V., Schieder, R., & Win-
To get the resolution closer to the desired one of newisser, G. F. 1994, Proc. SPIE, 2268, 305
16 KHz it is necessary to expand and collimate the Lambert, L. B. 1962, IRE Int. Conu. Rec., 6, 69
Scalise, E. 1999, ASSL, 241, 447
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Shcherbakov, A., Luna, A., Ledeneva, Y., & Maximov, J.
beam is using a Galilean telescope with a magnifi- 2007, in Proc. XXII Annual Congress Soc. Mexicana
cation of 15× and a laser diode module with beam Instrum.
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of a set of prisms to expand the laser beam. Software XXIII Annual Congress Soc. Mexicana Instrum.
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