Application of An Acousto-Optical TeO₂ Deflector in Radio Astronomy

A radio astronomical high-resolution acousto-optic spectrograph has been designed and constucted by means of an off-axis slow shear wave TeO₂ acousto-optic deflector which was developed by the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics. The major use of this spectrograph is to observe the CO molecular spectral lines from dark clouds in the Galaxy. Its spectral resolution has achieved 28 kHz (equivalent to 0.07 kms^-1 at 115 GHz). Conjunction with a 4m millimeter wave radio telescope in Australia, this acousto-optic spectrograph has detected some CO molecular lines with variant shapes from the southern dark clouds. The profile and details of these molecular lines were displayed clearly.