The influence of the development in silver halide sensitized gelatin holograms derived from PFG-01 plates

Silver halide sensitized gelatin (SHSG) is an interesting technique for the production of holographic optical elements. It combines the high sensitivity of photographic emulsions with the well-known low scattering and high diffraction efficiency corresponding to dichromated gelatin. Owing to the fact that Agfa has ceased production of holographic material it is necessary to find and study new silver halide materials for applications in holography. The differences between these new materials and Agfa material makes it necessary to introduce some modifications to the procedures optimized for Agfa. The influence of the different experimental parameters on the final quality of the hologram is also different when using these new materials. In this work we study the influence of the development step on some holographic characteristics as the diffraction efficiency, the absorption and scattering and the scattered light intensity, for SHSG phase transmission holograms recorded on the Slavich PFG-01 red-sensitive emulsion. We will show that real high diffraction efficiencies can be obtained when using Slavich material for recording SHSG transmission holograms for different developers included in the SHSG procedure. The peak diffraction efficiency reaches a very high level (96% after allowing for reflections) when using the AGFA 80 developer.This work was partially financed by the CICYT (Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología, Spain) under project no. MAT97-0705-C02-02