A photosensitive polymer as recording material in holography

Summary

A new reversible photochromic copolymer of maleic anhydride with styrene containing azo side groups was prepared. The system reacts to irradiation by a reversible trans-cis photoisomerization of light-sensitive azo groups. Irradiation also causes a change in the refractive index, so that the polymer may be employed in recording optical information in the form of phase hologram. The resolution of the material is higher than 2000 lines/mm.

In spite of the large variability of organic compounds, according to available information only two groups of compounds have been utilized in the reversible recording of volume phase holograms. These are dimers of aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons (Tomlinson et al. 1972) and stilbene derivatives (Anonym 1974). In this paper we describe a new reversible material for recording volume phase holograms (Matějka et al. 1978).