Generation of TH- and TE-polarized Bessel light beams at acousto-optic interaction in anisotropic crystals

This paper lays out a theory of acousto-optic (AO) interaction of TH- and TE-polarized Bessel light beams (BLBs) for the case when incident and diffracted optical fields and plane acoustic wave propagate along the optical axis of an uniaxial crystal. We have solved a system of coupled equations and calculated the diffraction efficiency of AO interaction, which has been shown to be close to one limited case of plane–wave interaction. We look at some particular cases of isotropic and anisotropic scattering, which can or cannot be accompanied by a change of the polarization state of vector BLBs. The paper explores acousto-optic processes of transferring optical singularities onto the wave front of BLBs and considers the transformation and generation of high-order phase dislocations (optical vortices) at AO interaction of BLBs along the optic axis of uniaxial crystals. Also under examination are peculiarities of AO interaction of Bessel vortex beams in the condition of the transverse and longitudinal phase-matching for uniaxial crystals of hexagonal, tetragonal and trigonal symmetries. The acousto-optic process under study can be used as a method for generation of the TH- and TE-polarized BLBs, which allows manipulating the polarization state of the output optical field in time.