Control of grating anomalies in photoactive polymers

Abstract

Grating formation in photoactive polymers are monitored by holographic recording. The photopolymers are based on acrylamide monomers, which are dissolved together with xanthine dyes in polyvinyl alcohol. Thin plastic coatings are obtained by casing on glass substrates. Photorecording occurs quasi-real-time and in-situ, meaning that no wet- chemical or post-thermal/photochemical processing is required. Formulations have been found, which produce large enough refractive index modulations, so that very high diffraction efficiencies can be obtained, when the recording beam angles are symmetric. Unfortunately, DEs significantly drop, when recording angles are highly asymmetric. The origin of this effect is shown to stem from grating anomalies, in that the slanted fringes bend due to nonlinear shrinkage effects during recording. The introduction of cross-linking and gelling agents stabilize the formed grating structures against dimensional distortions. These photopolymer layers have potential in photonics applications, such as holographic optical elements and waveguide structures.