Acousto-optic tunable filters in imaging applications

Milton S. GottliebBoris KaminskyCarnegie Mellon Research Institute700 Technology DrivePittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15230E-mail: ld2s@andrew.cmu.eduAbstract. We examine various physical characteristics of current-artacousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs) for spectrally filtered imaging appli-cations. Imaging spectroscopy, where the goal is to obtain simulta-neously spatial and spectral information, is a topical application that ef-fectively utilizes the attractive features of the AOTF. Key measures ofperformance include image blur, relative contribution from sidelobes,contribution from background illumination, broadband scattering and dif-fraction efficiency.