Introduction. Among acousto-optic spectrum analyzers with spatial integration, schemes based on optical interferometers provide the largest dynamic range. Nevertheless, they form the signal amplitude spectrum on a certain spatial carrier. Formation of quadrature components can eliminate this spatial carrier. The two-dimensionality of the transformations performed in optical processors provides this elimination by reading of the additional charge of matrix photosensor lines. A renowned method

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... lements this approach using four lines, which in turn determines the estimation time of the signal spectrum.Objective. The objective of the work is to study the possibility of time reduction of the spectrum estimation.Materials and methods. The paper presents the description of two methods of forming the necessary components.The first method uses three photosensor lines, the charge distribution in which has the spatial carrier phaseshifted by 90 ° from line to line. The second method forms the necessary distributions sequentially in three accumulation cycles by means of variation of the initial phase of the reference signal. By the mathematical proof, three distributions with a 90 ° relative phase shift are sufficient to eliminate the spatial carrier.Results. In the first method, reduction of the spectrum estimation time is insignificant, but the parallel distributions formation affords not to impose additional requirements on the signal spectrum. The second method, due to the possibility of using any three sequentially formed distributions for estimation, is potentially three times faster than the first method, but requires the stationary signal spectrum within three accumulation cycles. Researchers can implement this meth-od using a linear photosensor or TDI photosenor. In addition, the method is less demanding to optical scheme parameters.Conclusion. The proposed quadrature components formation methods provide time reduction of the spectrum estimation in interference acousto-optic spectrum analyzers and simplify their design.