Abstract

This report presents a high-frequency optical scanner based on a vibrating optical fiber. The lateral displacement and rotation of the optical fiber end and the acoustooptic effect due to the stress induced in the fiber core by the vibration provide a large deflection angle of the light beam. First, the configuration used to excite high-frequency bending vibrations on the optical fiber using a piezoelectric element is described, and the relationship between the resonant frequency and the fiber length is reviewed, on the basis of the simple beam theory. Second, the acoustooptic effect in the optical fiber is observed by the stroboscope method under a microscope. Two-dimensional scanning was demonstrated with the fiber vibration at 42 kHz and the ball lens displacement at 460 Hz.

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