We have demonstrated a -8 dB additional reduction in the intensity sidelobe of an apodized-interaction-strength guide-wave acousto-optic filter with a center passband of 1551.6 nm. Acoustic-intensity weighting was achieved by launching a surface acoustic wave (SAW) beam in a straight acoustic waveguide, and gradually transferring this SAW intensity to the active device, and back out, by evanescent-wave coupling across a 50 !lm barrier over a 19 rom interaction length. The intensity sidelobe was -4.27 dB for an unapodized filter with abmpt onset and cutoff of the interaction, but sidelobes were reduced to at most -12.68 dB for a SAW intensity with raised-cosine weighting. The RF driving power was 17.78 mW. A linear tuning rate of 8.86 nmIMHz and a spectral width of -1.7 nm were demonstrated. rated.