Ultrafast unidirectional deflection by electrooptic traveling phase grating using periodic domain inversion

An ultrafast light deflector at microwave frequency is useful in various fields, such as optical metrology, spectroscopy and optical computing, because of its potential for ultrashort optical pulse generation and optical signal processing such as serial-parallel conversion. We have developed several kinds of electrooptic scanners and deflectors operating at a microwave frequency, and have shown application of an electrooptic traveling phase grating to ultrafast unidirectional deflection. Further, we have proposed that an electrooptic modulator with slant-stripe-type periodic domain inversion acts as an efficient traveling phase grating which can operate at a frequency over ten gigahertz, in the same way as a quasi-velocity-matched phase modulator. Here, we report experimental demonstration of ultrafast unidirectional deflection by this electrooptic traveling phase grating.