Abstract
Holographic silicon polymer films based on photoswitchable molecules are studied with respect to their performance for hologram recording, with photoswitchable ruthenium sulfoxide complexes as an example. Our systematic study reveals that it is possible to record elementary holographic lossy gratings with outstanding quality with respect to their dynamics and in- and off-Bragg read-out features. Furthermore, the possibility for the recording of multiple holograms within the same volume element via angular multiplexing as well as the recording with continuous-wave and a fs-laser pulse train is successfully demonstrated. At the same time, a strong limitation of the maximum diffraction efficiency in the order of ∼ 10−3 is found that cannot be counterbalanced by either the tuning of material (thickness, concentration, ...) or recording parameters (repetition rate, wavelength, ...). This limitation – being severe for any type of holographic applications – is discussed and compared with the performance of high-efficient single-crystalline reference holographic media. We conclude that the potential of sulfoxide compounds may be hidden in holography until it becomes possible to synthesize polymer films with appropriate three-dimensional structural arrangement of the photoswitchable compounds.
Highlights
The approach to use photoswitchable molecular compounds as photofunctional building blocks in holographic materials goes back to the original proposal of Woike et al [1,2,3]
SNP features a light-induced linkage isomerism related with the Fe-N-O-bond and two metastable states MS1, MS2 (Fe-O-N bond for MS1 and a side-on-configuration of O-N with respect to Fe for MS2) and the possibility for hologram recording
An outstanding performance of OSO-PDMS and BIQ-PDMS polymer films is reflected by the dynamics of the efficiency, the quality of the off-Bragg read-out of the recorded holographic elementary lossy gratings, the possibility for angular multiplexing as well as the recording with continuous-wave and even a fs-laser pulse train at room temperature
Summary
The approach to use photoswitchable molecular compounds as photofunctional building blocks in holographic materials goes back to the original proposal of Woike et al [1,2,3]. We were able to demonstrate the possibility for embedding ruthenium sulfoxides compounds in a polymer matrix with conserved photochromic response [4]. Based on these pre-investigations, the ability to record elementary gratings with promising features for consumer-market holographic applications was proposed [11]. SNP) [15], has never been addressed so far
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