Stabilization of volume gratings recorded in polyvinyl alcohol-acrylamide photopolymers with diffraction efficiencies higher than 90%

Abstract

Obtaining holographic volume gratings with high diffraction efficiencies that can be used under white light has been a serious problem for the polyvinyl alcohol-acrylamide-based photopolymers developed by other researchers. In this paper we propose to eliminate the residual monomer in order to stabilize the holographic gratings. The residual dye and residual monomer are the main problems in achieving high diffraction efficiencies stable under white light. In order to polymerize the residual monomer we illuminate the gratings with coherent green light and incoherent white light and we heat the grating at 80°C for different times. We also study the conservation of gratings dried in critical conditions of humidity and temperature. After stabilization the diffraction efficiencies achieved were clearly higher than 90%.