SiO2 NPs-PQ/PMMA Photopolymer Material Doped with a High-Concentration Photosensitizer for Holographic Storage

Abstract

Dispersing nanoparticles and increasing the photosensitizer concentration have been regarded as effective approaches for improving the performance of a holographic storage material. In this paper, SiO₂ nanoparticle (NP)-dispersed PQ/PMMA nanocomposite material (SiO₂ NP-PQ/PMMA) with a high PQ doping concentration was prepared. By introducing the co-monomer methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) that comes from an SiO₂ NP colloidal solution, the concentration of PQ in the system increased to 1.2 wt %. We investigated the performance of polarization holographic recordings in both traditional PQ/PMMA and nanocomposite material SiO₂ NP-PQ/PMMA with the orthogonally polarized signal and reference waves. With the dispersion of the SiO₂ NPs colloidal solution and the increase in the PQ concentration, diffraction efficiency and photoinduced birefringence were multiplied. In addition, high-quality holographic image reconstruction was achieved by our homemade material.