Holographic Gratings Recording in Liquid Crystals and Functionalised Polymers and Their Role in Optical Information Processing
A. Miniewicz, S. Bartkiewicz, J. Mysliwiec, K. Komorowska, A. Sobolewska, L. Gryga, F. Kajzar, D. Sek, E. Grabiec, A.C. Mitus and G. Pawlik
Recording of laser induced gratings in low-molecular mass liquid crystals and functionalised photochromic polymers is the subject of this work. We are particularly interested in phase grating recording in hybrid photoconducting polymer–liquid crystal panels for which numerous photonic devices have already been proposed. Such systems have found applications as optically addressed liquid crystal spatial light modulators (OA LC SLM) in real-time holography. In this work we describe the preliminary studies of digital hologram recording and optical hologram retrieval in poly(N-vinyl carbazole)–TNF (trinitrofluorenone)–nematic liquid crystal panel. The second part of this work is devoted to the results of preliminary investigations of azo-benzene functionalised polymers in which interesting polarisation gratings have been recorded using s-p polarisation geometry in conventional degenerate two-wave mixing experiment. The gratings were analysed with the help of moving grating technique and supplemented with AFM (atomic force microscopy) observations of relief gratings.