Anisotropy of acoustooptic figure of merit in optically isotropic media

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to analyze the spatial anisotropy of acoustooptic figure of merit in various optically isotropic media, enabling the identification of optimal interaction geometries for enhanced performance.

Contribution

It develops a comprehensive approach to evaluate and optimize acoustooptic interactions in isotropic media, including amorphous and crystalline materials, based on derived relations for AOFM.

Findings

Derived relations for effective elastooptic coefficients and AOFM

Identified optimal geometries for AO interactions with highest AOFM

Analyzed cubic KBr and KAl(SO4)2x12H2O crystals

Abstract

We suggest a new approach for analyzing spatial anisotropy of acoustooptic figure of merit (AOFM). The relations for the effective elastooptic coefficients and the AOFM are derived for all possible types of acoustooptic (AO) interactions in optically isotropic media, including non-solid-state and solid-state amorphous media, and crystals belonging to the cubic system. Our approach allows for finding the optimal geometries of AO interactions characterized by the highest AOFM for a given material. The analysis is carried out on the examples of cubic KBr and KAl(SO4)2x12H2O crystals which represent different subgroups of the cubic symmetry class.