Abstract

Azobenzene polymers can be used to make photoinduced surface-relief gratings by a simple holographic technique. The polymer is applied to a substrate using spin-coating method and the grating is written by exposing the polymer surface to an interference pattern typically formed by interfering two halves of a laser beam with a mirror. We used azobenzene polymer complex that consisted of 4-dimethylamino-4′-hydroxyazobenzene (OH-DMA) azo dye and poly(4-vinyl pyridine) (P4VP) polymer [1]. The film shows no visible drop of transmission at near infrared wavelengths when measured through about 500 nm thick film.

© 2011 Optical Society of America