Fast projections of two-dimensional light patterns using acousto-optical deflectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fast, feedback-free method for projecting complex two-dimensional light patterns using acousto-optical deflectors, significantly improving speed and accuracy by suppressing artifacts.

Contribution

The authors develop an incommensurately staggered frequency lattice technique for AODs, enabling rapid, high-fidelity projection of both separable and non-separable 2D light patterns without scanning.

Findings

Method achieves high-speed projection with suppressed artifacts.

Enables accurate projection of complex 2D patterns without scanning.

Extends to non-separable images with minimal scanning.

Abstract

Precise and flexible control of structured light fields is essential for applications ranging from optical trapping and quantum simulation to microscopy and materials processing. Acousto-optical deflectors (AODs) are widely used in these settings due to their high speed, large damage threshold, and ability to generate steerable optical tweezers. Multi-tone driving offers a powerful alternative to slow sequential scanning, enabling the projection of complex patterns with high accuracy as rapid acoustic modulation averages out inter-spot interference. In two dimensions, however, intermodulation between tones in orthogonal AODs can reintroduce coherent artifacts. We present a fast, feedback-free AOD projection scheme based on an incommensurately staggered frequency lattice that intrinsically suppresses such artifacts. For separable two-dimensional target patterns, our method removes the need for scanning entirely, enabling substantially faster and highly accurate projections. We further extend the approach to non-separable images using a minimal scanning strategy that maintains rather high projection speeds. These results demonstrate that appropriately engineered multi-tone AOD driving offers an efficient and robust route to high-speed, high-fidelity generation of arbitrary intensity patterns.