Recording of diffraction gratings in polyvinyl alcohol/acrylamide photopolymers by pulsed laser irradiation

In this paper we present the experimental results obtained when diffraction gratings are stored using pulsed exposure in polyvinyl alcohol/acrylamide photopolymer deposited in a dry film. The influence of the energy of the irradiation pulse was studied and the number of pulses needed to reach maximum diffraction efficiency was obtained. The recording was performed using a n holographic copying process. The original patten employed was a gratin of 1000 lines/mm processed according to sliver halide sensitized gelatin, with a beam ratio of 1:2 and transmittance of 75 percent. We exposed the samples by recording holograms with as collimated beam from a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG Q- switched laser. The pulse duration was approximately 8 ns and the frequency of repetition varied between 2 and 10 Hz. The pulse fluence was increased from 0.07 mJ/cm2 to 6.7 mJ/cm2. Our initial results show that it is possible to obtain diffraction gratings with a diffraction efficiency of 60 percent. The energetic sensitivities achieved are close to those obtained when working with the same material and continuous irradiation, without processing of the gratings.This work was financed by the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) of Spain (Project MAT 97-0705-C02-02 and Project MAT 99-0622)