The possibility of employing a time-varying refractive-index gradient, generated by an ultrasonic standing wave in solids and liquids, to provide nonmechanical optical-beam scanning has been investigated in detail. Heretofore-unobtained deflections of sufficiently large angles to be of practical value in active optical systems have been achieved. These angles range between 3° and 6° at frequencies below and above 200 kc/sec. respectively. Standard slit and photomultiplier techniques were employed to study the effects of stress-induced birefringence in crystal quartz on the attainable angular movement of two collinearly deflected light beams that were orthogonally plane polarized. High-speed streak photography was used to measure the fidelity of the light beam as it emerged from a tetrachloroethylene ultrasonic cell. The photographic technique was utilized to evaluate effects of (1) light-beam diameter/sonic-wavelength ratio, (2) light-beam transit position relative to the sonic-pressure nodal point, and (3) light-beam angular-deflection amplitude.