ENERGY-EFFICIENCY COMPARISON OF ELECTRIC- AND MAGNETIC-FIELD ENHANCEMENT OF ACOUSTO-OPTIC DIFFRACTION IN PbMoO 4 CRYSTALS

This work considers the influence of electric and magnetic fields on the acousto-optic (AO) figure of merit in PbMoO4 crystals, arising from electro-gyration and Faraday effects that induce elliptical birefringence.A few types of anisotropic AO interactions with the slowest acoustic wave QT1 were analyzed: collinear forward and backward AO diffraction and tangential forward and backward AO diffraction.The highest AO figure of merit (29×10 -15 s 3 /kg) is achieved with backward tangential AO diffraction at 0 3 E =10 8 V/m (or magnetic field 795.8 kA/m).It has been found that even at 0 3 E =10 6 V/m (or magnetic field 37.5 kA/m), the AO figure of merit increases to 23×10 -15 s 3 /kg, i.e., the AO figure of merit increases by a factor of 2.3 under electric or magnetic field application.For this case of AO diffraction, a comparative analysis of the energy densities of the electric and magnetic fields required to enhance AO diffraction efficiency to a certain level by increasing the AO figure of merit and the power of the acoustic wave, which is necessary to achieve this AO efficiency without applying an electric or magnetic field, has been carried out.It has been found that with the chosen parameters, the electric and magnetic field energy densities are much higher than those of the acoustic wave.Nonetheless, there are many conditions under which these energy densities can be equalized.