Mercurous bromide acousto-optic devices

Abstract Large, good quality single crystals of mercurous bromide (Hg 2 Br 2 ) were grown by the physical vapor transport method. Velocity of acoustic waves along the 〈110〉 direction was measured to be 273 m/s, indicating the capability of delaying 100 μs long cells which are only 2.73 in aperture. Preliminary results showed that mercurous bromide is an exciting material for acoustic-optic tunable filters (AOTF) and Bragg cells suitable for optical signal processing.