Acousto Optic History

Brillouin predicted the light diffraction by an acoustic wave, being propagated in a medium of interaction, in 1922.

Inelastic scattering of light caused by acoustic phonons was first predicted by Léon Brillouin in 1922. Leonid Mandelstam is believed to have recognised the possibility of such scattering as early as 1918, but he published his idea only in 1926. In order to credit Mandelstam, the effect is also called Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering (BMS).

In 1932, Debye and Sears, Lucas and Biquard carried out the first experimentations to check the phenomena.

In 1932 two independent experiments performed by R. Lucas and P. Biquard in France and by Debye and Sears in USA which originated investigations on the ultrasonics and light interaction initiating the new branch of science and applications widely developed nowadays as acousto-optics. Original figures from their papers are reminded and followed by historical survey. Some mile stones of the acousto-optics achievements and fundamental concepts for ultrasonic light diffraction description are shortly reviewed. A large number of references of recent publications reflects the state of art. Of the subject both in the theoretical and application aspects and shows perspectives of further development of the fascinating branch of physics and optical engineering. 




The particular case of diffraction on the first order, under a certain angle of incidence, (also predicted by Brillouin), has been observed by Rytow in 1935.

Raman and Nath (1937) have designed a general ideal model of interaction taking into account several orders. This model was developed by Phariseau (1956) for diffraction including only one diffraction order.

At this date, the acousto-optic interaction was only a pleasant laboratory experimentation. The only application was the measurement of constants and acoustic coefficients.

The laser invention has led the development of acousto-optics and its applications, mainly for deflection , modulation and signal processing. Technical progresses in both crystal growth and high frequency piezoelectric transducers have brought valuable benefits to acousto-optic components ' improvements.