Amplitude-Phase Effects in Acousto-Optical Interaction in Gyrotropic Cubic Crystals

The amplitude-phase features of an intermediate regime of light diffraction on ultrasound in gyrotropic cubic crystals have been investigated. It is established that in the gyrotropic medium excited by ultrasound two coupled phase lattices of photoelasticity appear as a result of the rotation of the polarization planes of interacting waves. These lattices determine the polarization and energy characteristics of a diffracted light. For a gyrotropic cubic crystal of bismuth germanate, good agreement between the theoretical and experimental dependences of the efficiency of diffraction on the ultrasonic intensity in the intermediate regime close to the Bragg regime of diffraction is obtained.