New Studies of Acousto-Optic Interactions.

Acousto-optics is the field of science pertaining to the study of interactions between light and acoustic vibrations in solids, liquids, or gases. In recent years this field has evolved to much more than just the point where acoustics and optics meet. It has become a crossroad for many disciplines and technologies. This diversity in itself makes it a difficult and interesting area of research. In this work some fundamental concepts of acousto -optic interactions are re-examined. New understanding was gained of the process of diffraction of light by a propagating sound column under the condition of changing interaction orientation and changing sound frequency. This new understanding has shown existing treatments of these problems to be incomplete. It is further shown that one such commonly used model yields wrong predictions which stand in violation of the principle of time reversal. A device whose principle of operation is based on the knowledge gained in this study was implemented in a ring laser to induce unidirectional operation. In addition, acousto -optic light deflectors were investigated and new insight to their theory of operation was obtained. New operating configurations for these devices were tested, and future uses and applications are suggested.