Laser Beams Deflected Off of Nothing but Air for First Time Ever in Breakthrough Patent Pending Process - The Debrief::An international team of scientists report that they have successfully used acoustics to deflect laser beams in an engineering first.
Doesn’t an AOM typically have a lens?
No, it’s just a crystal and a piezo. You can focus into the AOM to get lower rise times but it works without any lenses.
I think I should have said “optic” in place of “lens”. The crystal is the portion that is being oscillated to divert the beam. It could be that this is exactly the same principle being used by the referenced experiment but with much higher powered acoustic equipment.
Yeah, they’re using air instead of a crystal :D