Image propagation through acousto-optic devices

We first report an optical image processing technique using acousto-optic Bragg diffraction. Instead of using frequency-plane filters, we demonstrate experimentally the programmable filter characteristic of the acousto-optic cell by changing the peak phase delay (alpha) . High- pass and low-pass filtering can exist simultaneously in different diffracted orders. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of an acousto-optic device in modeling controllable partically incoherent illumination of phase gratings, or the propagation of images through a random medium with a given power density spectrum.