Holographic characteristics of a thick self-developing photosensitive medium - dye-doped jelly-like gelatin are investigated by means of pulsed laser exposure. The experiments were performed using aqueous gelatin solutions of Rhodamin 6G with a layer thickness of 1 mm. The slanted holographic gratings were written with two crossed beams from a frequency-doubled (λ = 532 nm) and Q-switched YAG:Nd laser (τ_0.5 ≈ 17 ns, f ≤ 50 Hz). In the course of recording the hologram was read with the beam from a single-mode He-Ne laser (λ = 632.8 nm) which was not absorbed by the photosensitive medium. The real-time evolution of the grating diffraction efficiency was studied in dependence of the dye and gelatin concentration as well as the writing pulse fluence. It is shown that under appropriate choice of the medium composition and parameters of the recording radiation, it is possible to obtain phase volume holographic gratings with a diffraction efficiency of ~ 87 % and an angular selectivity of ~ 20'.

Date Published: 9 August 2007
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6731, International Conference on Lasers, Applications, and Technologies 2007: Advanced Lasers and Systems, 67312R (9 August 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.752947

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6731:
International Conference on Lasers, Applications, and Technologies 2007: Advanced Lasers and Systems
Valentin A. Orlovich; Vladislav Panchenko; Ivan A. Scherbakov, Editor(s)