High efficiency, low cost holographic optical elements for ultracold atom trapping

We demonstrate a method of creating high efficiency, high fidelity, holographic optical elements for the generation of complex optical fields, in a low cost photopolymer, Bayfol HX. The desired optical field profile is generated by a spatial light modulator and written into an optically addressable photopolymer as a volume hologram. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by trapping a Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium-87 atoms in the nodal plane of an HG0,1 mode generated by one of these holographic optical elements. We also extend this method to the generation holograms with twice the angular momentum per photon than can be generated with a given spatial light modulator.