Abstract
The comparative cytotoxic evaluation of two monomers, diacetone acrylamide (DA) and acrylamide (AA) used in holographic photopolymer formulations, is reported. Two normal cell lines were used: BEAS-2B and HaCaT. Cellular viability was assessed using the MTT assay for three different exposure times. A difference of two orders of magnitude is observed in the lethal dose (LD50) concentrations of the two monomers. Diacetone acrylamide exhibits a significantly lower toxicity profile in comparison to acrylamide at all exposure times. This result justifies the replacement of acrylamide with diacetone acrylamide in the photopolymer formulation, with the view to reducing occupational hazard risks for large-scale holographic device fabrication. A comparative study investigating the holographic recording ability of the two photopolymers in transmission mode showed that the DA photopolymer is capable of reaching refractive index modulation values of3.3×10-3, which is 80% of the refractive index modulation achieved by the AA photopolymer. This makes the DA-based photopolymers suitable for a wide range of applications.
Highlights
Photopolymer materials are widely researched for a variety of holographic applications such as diffractive optics and holographic data storage
The cellular viability was expressed as a percentage of the negative control for each concentration dose, for both the diacetone acrylamide (DA) and AA compounds at all three exposure times
The Δn of the DA photopolymer is 80% of that achieved with the AA photopolymer. These results show that the DA material is sensitive enough for holographic applications and devices, such as sensors
Summary
Photopolymer materials are widely researched for a variety of holographic applications such as diffractive optics and holographic data storage. Acrylamide (AA), a main component of the standard photopolymer composition, is carcinogenic and toxic in its monomer form. This toxicity has been extensively investigated, using both in vivo and in vitro methods [13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. A recent development has been the replacement of AA with a nontoxic monomer diacetone acrylamide (DA) in the photopolymer composition [21, 22] This has been done to reduce the potential occupational and environmental hazards involved in future large-scale material development and device fabrication. This will allow direct comparison to be made for the first time between the holographic recording ability of the two materials and the effect of the monomer substitution
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