Аннотация:The paper represents a brief overview on theoretical and experimental investigations of feedback acousto-optic systems carried out in Moscow State University in recent years. These systems are of great interest by reason of their complicated and intriguing behavior as well as in view of new applications in optical information processing. Various regimes of
operation of acousto-optic systems with amplitude and frequency feedback are analyzed. The application of these systems for optical beam intensity and direction stabilization are considered. An original scheme of acousto-optic generator based on the effect of optical heterodyning is proposed and examined theoretically and experimentally.