Enhanced acousto-optic diffraction in electrostrictive media

Abstract

We examine the phenomenon of light-induced enhancement of the acoustic waves traveling in electrostrictive materials. In particular, we consider the case of an acousto-optic Bragg cell illuminated by an intense optical beam and show that the diffraction efficiency of the device may exhibit an intensity dependence that is due to the electrostrictive nonlinearity of the acousto-optic medium. We describe experiments in which high-energy pulsed laser sources are used to show a 20% enhancement in the diffraction efficiency observed in a TeO₂ acousto-optic modulator.

© 1990 Optical Society of America

Efficient optical enhancement of acousto-optic diffraction using optimized overlap of coupled waves

Frederick Vachss and Ian McMichael
Opt. Lett. 15(16) 921-923 (1990)

Acoustooptic Bragg diffraction in anisotropic optically active media

Robert S. Seymour
Appl. Opt. 29(6) 822-826 (1990)

Nonlinear-optical Bragg scattering in Kerr media

Pochi Yeh and Monte Khoshnevisan
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 4(12) 1954-1957 (1987)

Bragg electrostriction in optical waveguides

M. S. Chang
Appl. Opt. 16(7) 1960-1965 (1977)

Diffraction properties of fixed gratings in photorefractive media

Claire Gu and Pochi Yeh
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 7(12) 2339-2346 (1990)