Group Newsletter Instant holography.pdf

1SPIE’s International Technical Group Newsletter HOLOGRAPHY DECEMBER 1999 Holography SPIE’s International Technical Group Newsletter continued on p. 5 V . 10, NO. 2 Instant holography The three dimen- sional display of images of moving objects has been a dream for many de- cades. Ranging from a study of mi- croscopic objects, such as cells, in their natural environment to three dimensional movies, this dream has been realized under certain cir- cumstances. Short recordings of mov- ing objects have been made holo- graphically in silver halide films. But apart from limited sensitivity, this type of re- cording requires the wetprocessing of film. Azobenzene-containing polymers have been under intensive investigation during the last decade as materials for digital as well as holo- graphic storage. However, since storage in these polymers involves the physical reorien- tation of long polymer chains, this process was thought to take place over several seconds, if not minutes. We have shown that holograms can be written in side-chain azobenzene poly- mers with a single pulse lasting 5ns from a pulsed laser. 1 The cyanoazobenzene side-chain polyester, P3aA, is prepared by transesterification of the cyanoazobenzene containing diol and diphenyl pththalate in the melt under vacuum. The diol is prepared in a sequence of reactions starting from bromopropyl alkylation of diethyl malonate, reduction to the corresponding 1,3-propanediol, ketal protection with ac- etophenone, coupling with cyanoazobenzene phenol and finally deprotection by acidic alco- holysis. Approximately 3 mg of the polyester material is dissolved in 150 microlitres chlo- roform and cast on to a clean substrate. The film is dried in an oven at a temperature of 90?C for ten minutes. A polarization holographic set-up is used to record holographic gratings (Figure 1). We use a commercially-available small-frame fre- quency-doubled YAG laser, lasing at 532nm, as the source. This laser delivers Q-switched pulses of 5