An electro-optic modulator-assisted wavevector-resolving Brillouin light scattering setup

Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy is a powerful technique which incorporates several extensions such as space-, time-, phase-, and wavevector-resolution. Here, we report on the improvement of the wavevector-resolving setup by including an electro-optic modulator. This provides a reference to calibrate the position of the diaphragm hole which is used for wavevector selection. The accuracy of this calibration is only limited by the accuracy of the wavevector measurement itself. To demonstrate the validity of the approach the wavevectors of dipole-dominated spin waves excited by a microstrip antenna were measured.