Photoinduced Surface Relief Grating Formation for a Single Crystal of 4-Aminoazobenzene

Hideyuki Nakano

doi:10.3390/ijms11041311

Abstract

Photoinduced surface relief grating (SRG) formation for a single crystal of 4-aminoazobenzene was investigated. It was found that SRG could be inscribed on the (001) surface of the crystal, which might suggest that the photoinduced SRG formation is a general phenomenon observed for single crystals of azobenzene-based molecules as well as for azobenzene-based amorphous systems. In addition, the dependences of the SRG formation upon the orientation of the sample crystal and upon the polarization of the writing beams were found to be different from those observed for previously reported crystalline systems.

Highlights

Patterning and relief fabrication using organic solid materials by photoirradation are key technologies for making micro- and nano-scale eletronic and photonic devices
Formation can take place on a single crystal of 4-(dimethylamino)azobenzene (DAAB) and found that the dependence of the surface relief grating (SRG) formation for the DAAB single crystal upon the polarization of the writing beams was quite different from those reported for azobenzene-based polymers and amorphous molecular materials [30,31]
We have reported that the dependences of the SRG formation for DAAB and BFlAB-AcOEt crystals upon the orientation of the sample were due to large optical anisotropy of the sample crystal [30,31,32]

Summary

Introduction

Patterning and relief fabrication using organic solid materials by photoirradation are key technologies for making micro- and nano-scale eletronic and photonic devices. Photoinduced surface relief grating (SRG) formation by irradiation of the films of azobenzene-based amorphous systems, including polymers [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] and small molecules [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24], with two coherent laser beams, has received attention as a technique of relief fabrication. We have demonstrated that photoinduced SRG formation can take place on a single crystal of 4-(dimethylamino)azobenzene (DAAB) and found that the dependence of the SRG formation for the DAAB single crystal upon the polarization of the writing beams was quite different from those reported for azobenzene-based polymers and amorphous molecular materials [30,31]. AAB has a melting point of 117 °C and no glass-forming ability, exhibiting ready crystallization even when the molten sample was cooled rapidly with liquid nitrogen

Results and Discussion

Experimental Section

Calculation

Conclusions