The spatial structure of acousto-optic phase matching in biaxial crystal of alpha-iodic acid

Anisotropic acousto-optic diffraction in biaxial crystal of alpha-iodic acid has been studied in the case in which the wave vector of the ultrasound is almost orthogonal to one of the optical axes and the directions of incident and diffracted light beams are close to the optical axis. It is shown that, owing to the complex form of wave surfaces in the field of optical axes of a biaxial crystal, the considered variant of acousto-optic interaction is very sensitive to changes in the direction of the wave vector of the ultrasound that imposes special requirements to accuracy of manufacturing of acousto-optic devices.