Holography with guided optical waves

Abstract

Waveguide holograms are recorded in a storage material layer covering a planar dielectric waveguide with a guided mode as reference wave. They are also read-out with a guided mode. In the storage material, assumed to have a lower refractive index than the waveguiding film, the fields of the reference and of the read-out wave are evanescent waves.

We describe the preparation of the epoxy resin (Araldit) waveguides on glass substrates, their coating with a dichromated gelatin (DCG) layer as storage material, the processing of the DCG, and the recording and reconstruction techniques.

Waveguide holograms of good quality with a size of several square centimeters have been realized for the first time. The holograms were recorded and read-out with wavelength λ=488 nm. They have a length of about 25 mm and a width of 17 mm. To obtain holograms that wide a special prism coupler had to be used which allowed to couple in a laser beam of elliptical cross section, and thus to excite a guided reference or read-out mode with a width of 17 mm.