The rise time of the modulator is simply deduced by the necessary time for the acoustic wave to travel through the laser beam. For highest speeds the laser beam will be focused down, forming a beam waist as it passes through the modulator.
The first order beam of a modulator is frequency shifted by the amount of the RF carrier frequency: it acts like as fixed frequency shifter. By varying the frequency, you can get a variable frequency shifter.
BDO design: We offer a specific design called BDO «Beam Drift Optimization» for those applications which need superior beampointing stability.