Diffraction of Light by an Acoustic Pulse

摘要

Results of the study of diffraction of light by acoustic pulses in isotropic and anisotropic media are reported. A change from the Raman-Nath diffraction regime to Bragg diffraction is studied in detail, and the dependences of the diffraction efficiency and the switching time on parameters of acoustooptic interaction are analyzed. The greatest attention is devoted to the study of the amplitude and the frequency structures of diffracted light in the case where the length of an acoustic pulse is comparable to the width of an incident light beam.