Study of the index matching for different photopolymers

Abstract

One of the most promising phase optical recording mediums are photopolymers. In these materials, the use of an index matching component permits a better conservation of the stored information and, additionally, the study of the molecules migration and shrinkage/swelling phenomena separately. In general, the transmitted beam has the information of the thickness and refractive index modulation mixed. Therefore, we propose the introduction of a coverplate besides with an index matching liquid in order to improve the characterization and the conservation. The index matching techniques have been classically used for holographic recording materials. In principle, to obtain an accurate index matching we have to choose a liquid with refractive index very close to the mean of the polymer one. Then, when shrinkage takes place during recording, mainly due to the polymerization, the liquid will fill up the generated grooves minimizing the diffractive effects produced by the relief structure. In fact, in this work we study different index matching components for different photopolymers. The photopolymers analyzed in this work have a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a binder and two different main monomers: one has acrylamide and the other one sodium acrylate. We have recorded very low diffractive gratings and studied their conservation for different index matching components.