Photoelastic stiffening by z-directed acoustic-wave-induced electric fields as extra control of optic interaction in BaTio3

Acoustic waves in ferroelectrics are well known to induce both strain and electric field by propagating through the medium and to perturb the refractive index by the photoelastic effect. In this paper, the strain and strain-induced electric field associated with the longitudinal acoustic waves propagating in the xz plane of ferroelectric BaTiO₃ crystal is applied to the perturbation theory of the acousto-optic interactions to examine the effect of the photoelastic tensor stiffening by z-directed acoustic-wave-induced electric fields on the effective photoelastic constant as extra control of optic wave interaction with z-directed acoustic waves in the crystal. The tensorial photoelastic coupling is suggested to have a great potential for development of low voltage and tunable acousto-optic devices by using the strain-induced electric field and tuning the strain magnitude.