Acousto-optic materials for special applications with ultra-short optical pulses

We report here new acousto‐optic designs dedicated for applications in the edge of today's research: generation and spatially scanning of highly stable femtosecond laser pulse trains possibly with variable repetition rate, to provide optimal circumstances for a variety of applications: pump‐probe experiments, laser spectroscopy, laser microscopy. The design of new interaction geometries and device configurations serves the fulfillment of criteria like minimization of material and angular dispersion and maximization of diffraction efficiency, acoustic bandwidth and optical phase stability. We summarize experimental results obtained during pulse picking a femtosecond optical pulse train, actively stabilizing a laser oscillator with 20 MHz pulse repetition rate and implementing an acousto‐optic scanner for two‐photon laser microscope using dedicated devices with parameters optimized for the given application (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)