Azobenzene-containing polymers have attracted much attention as photo-responsive materials owing to potential applications in optical data storage and holographic recording. In holography, azobenzene compounds doped in a polymer matrix (guest- host polymer film) or chemically attached to the polymer (co-polymer) are among the most widely used materials. Azo-polymers exhibit differing behaviors when exposed to a pattern resulting from the interference of two coherent beams. In the guest-host system, the recorded grating corresponds to a contrast of refractive index between the dark and bright areas of the film, and in the co-polymer, interference patterns lead to surface height modulation; i.e. surface relief gratings (SRGs). The latter is due to photo-induced mass movement of the polymer from bright to the dark area of the interference pattern in the direction of the intensity gradient, and the photoisomerization force is at the origin of the formation of the gratings. In this paper, we give an overview of our experiments on holographic recording in both guest host and co-polymers systems; e.g. doped and covalently attached polymers, and based on the theory of photo-induced vectorial mobility of matter, we discuss the results obtained for the co-polymer system.

Date Published: 1 March 2019
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10944, Practical Holography XXXIII: Displays, Materials, and Applications, 1094403 (1 March 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2513416

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10944:
Practical Holography XXXIII: Displays, Materials, and Applications
Hans I. Bjelkhagen; V. Michael Bove Jr., Editor(s)